


Law and Drugs

by Nora_D_Mindoir



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Angst, Crime Fighting, Drama, F/F, Police AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 00:35:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 98,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18144326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nora_D_Mindoir/pseuds/Nora_D_Mindoir
Summary: [A/U] Alex Vause is a successful heroin importer. After a disastrous failed delivery, she searches for new mules and meets the attractive DEA Agent Piper Chapman. What could possibly go wrong?





	1. Runner

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoiler**  
>  -
> 
> **Rating**  
>  M for Language, Violence and Sexual Innuendo [As well as my own safety]
> 
> **Disclaimer**  
>  All rights of Orange is the new Black including the characters belong to Netflix, Lionsgate, Jenji Kohan and Piper Kerman. This product is a one-hundred percent non-profitably project.
> 
> **A/N**  
>  I got the idea for this story while rewatching Weeds (S1-S3)  
> This is a reupload from FanFiction.net where I began this story 4 years ago.
> 
> _have fun,_   
>  _sincerely your roman soldier_   
>  _~ Mindoir_

New York City, New York  
Queens  
John F. Kennedy International Airport  
February 11th 2012; 05:26 PM

Orange light of the sunset shines through the big windows into the terminal. People are pacing while dragging big suitcases, some of them seem relaxed, and others hurried. A lot are hugging each other with tearful eyes out of sorrow or joy. Voices quack out of the speakers. In the middle of this whirlwind stands a very impatient Alex Vause without her usually always present trademark smirk. She gazes repeatedly at her watch and the info panel which displays the incoming, outgoing and landing flights.

Flight LH-404 is for her the interesting flight; from Frankfurt to New York City; a travel duration of nearly nine hours. A flight which landed nearly scheduled - Alex looks at her watch again – thirty-two minutes ago.

And she knows exactly that no one would normally need thirty-two minutes to get the bag from the baggage claim. She doesn’t like it, not one bit. 30 minutes are the maximum to leave the plane, get your bag and send the first massage. One-and-a-half hours you get to go through customs and send the second massage. Another fifteen minutes later you have to arrive at your driver’s position so he can send the third massage. If things get complicated or delayed, you also send a massage. It’s an absolutely necessary fail-safe. But Alex didn’t even get one message at this early evening.

She grabs her business mobile out of her pocket. Hesitantly she dials a number and sighs while she waits for the ringing to get interrupted by the person on the other end. It takes a few seconds. It always takes a few seconds and Alex knows why. To tantalize her. She knows that he knows why she’s calling.  And she knows what he’ll say. She knows this dialogue by heart. She knows what talk to expect later. She hasn’t been the interrogated person often but every time is one too much.

After seventeen long seconds, he takes the call. “Alex”, he greets her disappointed, yes, he already knows why she calls and what she’s going to say, but as always, he acts all ignorant, “what’s the matter?”

She remains silent for a moment, hoping that she’ll get a massage and can tell Fahri that everything is only a false alarm. But she can’t indulge into that illusion. “We have a runner”, she finally admits monotone.

“Which flight?”

“LH-404. Landing was”, again Alex looks at the big board and her watch; everything must be in detail, “thirty-four minutes ago.”

Fahri says nothing. He checks the flight, whether the contraband is money or drugs and how much, who got assigned by Alex to do the transport and who he could send know. “I’ll get Michael”, he says what pleases Alex.

Michael is a decent guy, an employee at JFK, who always does what and how he’s told quickly and accurately. He will grab the suitcase, get it through customs intact and bring it to the warehouse.

“And now about Leila-“, Fahri begins but gets cut off by Alex. She knows exactly what will happen to her but she wouldn’t bear to hear about it now. It’ll be hard enough to be present when it’s time.

“I know.”

Leila is the mule Alex chose for the flight. It wasn’t her first one but it was the first with this extent of drugs. Obviously, the heroin was too much pressure on the young woman. _A shame_ , Alex thinks. Leila was always reliable until now which was, why she thought she would be perfect for this job. Well, to err is human. And now Leila won’t be able to do any other flight for the cartel. A big loss. She could’ve been one of their greatest mules.

For a few seconds, the line is silent again, until Fahri sighs heavily. “Kubra won’t like it”, he says and sounds genuinely concerned for Alex, what makes her smile a little bit.

“I know”, is her only answer until she adds “Leila neither” after another moment of silence and hangs up.

Thirteen minutes full of nervous pacing have their end as Alex’s mobile rings. She already wants to breath in relief, but then she notices that the ringtone doesn’t announce a text message. And a call is never something good. A message means something positive or new instructions, a call however is mostly bad news. Especially in this situation.

She looks at the phone. The name Michael is displayed on the screen und Alex’s nervousness is crawling back into her body even more intense. She accepts the call and holds the phone reluctant towards her ear.

“We’ve got a problem”, is everything Michael says and Alex knows instantly what that means. She closes her eyes and breathes heavily once, twice and again, while she calculates her current situation and how much she’s fucked. _Kubra won’t like this at all._

“Fuck…”, it’s barely a whisper. “Fuck”, she utters louder. She would love to scream it, to smash her mobile to the ground and to crush it with her feet. Instead she stands there in the middle of the whirlwind of hurrying people. “Is it in customs?”

“They’re examining it right now. And you know how thorough they examine unwatched luggage.”

“Get out of there”, she finally orders and goes straight to the exit herself, “we’ll meet at the warehouse. And please”, she bites her lower lip and stops for a moment in the middle of one of the big parking areas, “pray for me to what fucking higher power whatsoever you believe in.”

“That won’t be necessary”, he tries to calm her down, “you’re irreplaceable.”

“Everybody is replaceable, Michael.”

With these words, she hangs up and grips the mobile hard. For 13 years she works for Kubra Balik, for 9 years she recruits new mules and in the past 4 years she coordinates a bulk of the international smuggling. In this time, she’s lost sixteen mules, seventeen with Leila. Eight times she lost money because of the incompetence of others. But never before she lost drugs. There’s a first time for everything but she always hoped it wouldn’t happen.

Losing drugs is bad, way worse than losing money. A high amount of smuggled money makes the cops suspicious whereas drugs will imply the DEA starting an eager investigation. That’s definitely nothing anybody needs right now.

With a grim gaze, she gets into the black Mercedes which is parked in one of the lots.

“I didn’t expect you”, Billy greets her, his chocolate-eyes gazed at Alex. He turns the keys and starts the motor.

“Leila backed out”, Alex mumbles.

He turns and looks through the rear window at the terminal before facing Alex again. “And the bag?”

She doesn’t answer, she simply stares out of the window and Billy knows what that means.

“Shit.”

“Indeed”, she agrees and dials Fahri’s number again. She still clutches her phone so tight that Billy thinks it would break any moment.

Fahri lets her wait again, but only for 9 seconds this time. Alex chooses to close her eyes for the conversation, hoping everything is just a terrible nightmare and that she’ll wake up in her apartment any second, clutching the blanket and covered with cold sweat, laughing nervously due to the realization that all of this was just a dream and she could start the day all over again.

“Alex”, Fahri sounds surprised and concerned to hear from the importer again so early.

“Michael wasn’t fast enough”, Alex explains directly and without hesitation. She wants to get over with this as fast as possible, “the goods are gone.”

Silence dominates the car. Merely her heavy breathing and the motor can be heard while Alex waits desperately for Fahri to answer.

“I pray for you”, is all he says before he cuts the line.

“Fuck”, she whispers again. She loses the grip on her phone which lands in her lap and takes of her glasses to rub her nose with the thumb and index. _Wake up, Alex_ , she orders herself in her head over and over again.

Billy, who followed the short dialogue with an empathetic look, knows what kind of danger Alex is in right now. He takes his right hand off the wheel and brushes her shoulder. “It’s all gonna be good. You’re irreplaceable for Kubra.”

Alex puts her glasses back on and smiles faintly but shallow. “Michael said the same.”

“Cause it’s true.”

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 1 05:57 PM

Three more minutes she’ll be sitting here, staring at the clock, hoping for the time to pass faster. 3 more minutes until she can stand up, leave her office, then the building and grab a drink with a couple of her colleagues or go straight to the subway to drive the forty minutes home. To Brooklyn, to her fiancé, to her cat, to a wonderful dinner and a cozy evening on the couch. Three more minutes until end of work. And the phone rings.

“Just my luck”, Piper mumbles annoyed as she grabs the phone which, she exactly knows that, is going to ruin her plans for the evening, “Chapman.”

“Jackpot, Chapman!”, an excited Caputo shouts into her ear, “drugs found at JFK, nab Nichols and get going.”

Piper’s gaze switches to the clock again and she sighs heavily. 05:78 PM. It would’ve been two fucking minutes. Drug dealer really fuck up every tiny bit of joy of calling it a day. “Immediately, boss”, she hangs up the phone and turns her chair around. She grabs a sheet of paper, scrunches it up and throws it into the wild strawberry blonde mane of her colleague.

“Hey!”, Nicky yells and jumps up startled. She stares at Piper with a gaze she knows pretty well. It’s her famous _Are-you-fucking-kidding-me?_ face.

“We’ve got a case”, Piper says turning back to her desk. She ignores the colorful curses of her colleague and dials her own house number on the phone.

“Larry Bloom”, she hears her fiancé say a few seconds later.

“Hey, honey, it’s me. I’ll be home late today”, she explains hesitantly with disappointment in her voice and adds a much quieter “if at all.” She can practically see the sad look on Larry’s face as she hears his sharp breathing. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

“Yeah, you’re always sorry”, Larry sighs whereby Piper feels even worse. It’s unfortunately not really rare for her to work late or to get a new case close to end of work but that’s part of the job.

“Larry, I-“

“I know, Pipes”, he cuts her off, “I know. Just take care of yourself and try to come home at least anytime today, kay?” His tone is calm as always when he says that, but Piper knows what he’s really thinking. Her work is the top issue of dispute between them, mostly induced by calls like this.

“Promise. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She replaces the phone and starts to snatch up everything she’s going to need on a field trip. Nicky, already done with that, leans against her desk.

“Always this mushy-mush with you”, Nicky shakes her head and sighs in relief, “fortunately I’m single.”

At that Piper raises an eyebrow and watches her confused. “Single? What about this petite Italian girl… Lorna?”

“That’s no relationship per se”, she states shrugging.

“Only the occasionally flirt?”

“More like the occasionally fuck”, she says with her always present smirk, after what Piper simply shakes her head and stands up, everything she’s going to need gathered. “Apart from that she’s _engaged_ ”, Nicky explains further and makes air quotes at the word engaged.

“ _Engaged_?”, Piper inquires with the same emphasis and gesture.

“Well, I’ve never seen him.”

“You don’t really introduce your fiancé to your affaire. Or vice versa.”

“Touché”, Nicky winks with one eye and reaches for her briefcase. “So, where’re we going?”

“JFK.”

“I hate airports”, Nicky grumbles and looks a last time at the clock before she hurries behind Piper, “and I hate rush-hour.”

 

.oOo.

 

“Did I mention that I hate your driving, too?”, Nicky inquires as Piper pulls her unlabeled police car over an hour later into the parking area nearest to terminal one and searches for some empty lots.

“So why do you hate airports?”, Piper asks ignoring Nicky’s question.

“Long story.”

Piper ignores the typical meaning of those two words, “we’ve got a lot of time. It’ll take forever to find a parking spot here.”

“We’re cops, Chapman. Just park near the entrance and keep the blue lights switched on.”

She sighs, especially because she agrees with that statement. As DEA agents on duty they’re basically allowed to park where they want, with few exceptions. She turns the car and drives to the front of the terminal to park the car in a taxi lot.

They exit the car and grab their things out of the trunk. “So, back to your hatred for airports.”

“As much as I’d like to share my anecdotes with you, blondie”, Piper rolls her eyes at the nickname Nicky casually calls her since the two met years ago, “I definitely don’t have enough alc in my body to even think about things which could involve my mother in any way.”

“Understood”, Piper nods and drops the topic full aware of the strained relationship between Nicky and her mom. They enter the terminal and go directly to the information booth.

“Good Evening, we’re from the DEA”, Piper begins and draws her ID out of her jacket, “Agent Chapman, Agent Nichols.”

“One second, please”, the young woman reaches for the phone and apparently calls the security service of the airport. After a few seconds, she devotes herself back to the agents, “Ms. Hayes will come to meet you shortly.”

The two don’t have to wait long until a big cart hurries over and stops next to the booth. A corpulent black woman gets off the driver’s seat and goes straight towards the agents.

“Hey, ladies”, she stretches her fist out and Piper and Nicky exchange some confused looks. Eventually they bump their clenched fists against the one of the officer. “You the DEA guys?”

Piper simply nods and points to herself “Chapman” and then at Nicky “Nichols.”

“Black Cindy”, the woman introduces herself, whereupon Nicky glances amused at Piper who in return mouths the name with a questioning look. “Let’s get ya to the drugs”, she continues and gestures to the electric cart.

Piper and Nicky seat themselves in the back, while Black Cindy takes place in front of the wheel again and drives astounding reckless through the crowd in the terminal.

“What exactly did you find?”, Piper asks after they stopped at customs and got off the cart.

“Heroin. Dunno how much, didn’t touch anything after we found the first bag and called ya.”

Black Cindy leads the two agents to the rooms were the security checks the luggage and points to a big, black, wide opened case. Next to it lays a small plastic bag filled with white powder.

“We dragged it out here”, she explains and points at a spot in the inside of the case where the seam is broken, “loosened during the transport. Wouldn’t found it otherwise.”

Piper simply nods and puts, as well as Nicky, a pair of latex gloves on. They start their work with unpacking the whole case. While Nicky searches through the stuff, Piper snaps some photos and opens more seams with her pocketknife afterwards. Gradually she pulls out one small bag filled with fine, white heroin after the other out of the lining.

“Man!”, Nicky whistles astonished after she finished going through the luggage and turned toward the growing pile of heroin, “somebody’ll be pissed.”

“You bet.”

In the end, they found one-hundred small packages in the lining and stored them carefully into evidence bags. Piper removes one glove and grabs her phone while Nicky stores the bags in her briefcase.

“Caputo?”, their chief answers after few seconds.

“Chapman here. We seized several pounds of heroin.”

“Great. Bring everything to forensics, find out whose bag that is and… Just do your work.”

Piper can only nod as Caputo cuts the line. This order ultimately ruined all her plans for this day. She doesn’t mind the extra work, she loves her job after all. But she has someone at home waiting for her and he won’t be happy at all that this will be another night in which she won’t come home, what will lead to a conversation she really doesn’t desire. She turns to her colleague, who looks totally annoyed as she faces her.

“I know that look”, Nicky shakes her head hard and grabs her briefcase, “does that fucker even know what’s off-hours?”

“Crime has no off-hours, Nicky.”

“Yeah, well, I’d appreciate ‘em anyway.”

_to be continued…_


	2. Failure

Newark, New Jersey  
Springfield/Belmont  
Day 1 06:59 PM

Traffic sucks, like always at rush-hour. Cars creep honking through the streets, the highways are jammed and you listen to profanity everywhere you go. No human being with a healthy mind is able to make a single good point about rush-hour.

Alex is no exception. She isn’t made for this slow progress. She lives for the excitement, the business, the rush. She isn’t that different from her customers; a junkie. Her drug however isn’t heroin, it’s adrenalin. It gets her on cloud nine and at the same time slowly rips her apart from inside out without her even noticing.

In this moment though she’s thankful that she’s stuck in traffic with Billy because of a broken traffic light which causes even more chaos on the already much-trafficked crossing.

She doesn’t know what to expect when she’ll enter the warehouse. She doesn’t know _who_ to expect. Fahri will be there, but will Kubra be there, too? Or will he simply send a henchman to do his dirty job, whatever that might consist of?

While Billy mumbles slurred and gets exasperated with the current traffic situation, Alex gazes out of the side window and notices subconsciously a mother trying to soothe her little boy after his ice-cream dropped from the waffle to the ground and now decorates the curb.

A man in a suit walks across them without regarding them any further until he steps right into the ice cream with his big Italian shoe. Instantly he curses and turns to the boy to make him accountable. The boy cries even more so that his mother steps forward protectively and gets cussed at instead of her son.

Right now, Alex feels like the mother. She’ll be held liable and get punishment for something without being blamable. Leila backing out isn’t her fault, but she was responsible for the transport. Like the mother is for her son. She tried to defuse the situation and redress the problem but she wasn’t fast enough. And now she must anticipate something driven by anger and disappointment.

She faces the windshield again and notices that the police are starting to regulate the traffic at the crossroad with the broken lights. Slowly the chaos dissolves and Billy steps on the gas.

A few minutes later they park the car in front of the warehouse. It actually is only a row of three houses with connected basements in the middle of Springfield/Belmont near the Central High School. The upper floors are used as sleeping facilities for mules and other passing through cartel members, whereas the basement is used as storage for the drugs and money.

Nasir, another cartel member, lives in these houses and officially rents the rooms to travelers, just so that the frequently incoming and outgoing of different people with suitcases doesn’t attract unwanted attention in the neighborhood. Every now and then a nonmember actually runs into the houses and crashes in one of the rooms for a few nights, but Nasir only lets that happen when no drugs have to be moved around. Hence in this moment the rooms are empty except for members.

Strictly speaking this warehouse is none of the main warehouses, it’s only an interim storage where drugs and money are prepared for future transports or to deliver them directly to the dealers or used as a meeting point.

Alex gets out of the car and heads for the middle house, her head held high, the hands empty, followed by Billy. She opens the door with her own key and steps into the hallway. On the dark parquet lies a Turkish carpet, paintings of landscapes at various seasons and daytimes adorn the walls. Next to the front door are a hallstand on which three jackets are hanging and a closed shoe rack.

On the left side are the stairs up to the next floor and down to the basement. Three doors lead out of the hallway into the smallest bathroom of the house, the kitchen and the big den where usually business is done. Alex faces the third door and takes a deep breath before entering the room.

Fahri sits on the black leather couch, his back turned to Alex, and watches a soccer match on the big television screen. He doesn’t turn around or twitches in any way as acknowledgement of her, until he suddenly says a simple but harsh “hello, Alex.”

She steps closer to the couch until she stands next to Fahri and stares down at him. He swirls his glass of whiskey around, his gaze glued to the screen.

Alex is rarely as nervous in his presence as now. His silence is what drives her crazy. The fact that he seems completely unconcerned about what’s going to happen to her.

_Maybe he really doesn’t even care_ , Alex considers, while trying to analyze something useful out of his face. After all Alex is just a small cog in a big wheel. A cog which caused problems and now has to be repaired or replaced. This is business for Fahri and nothing more. The fact that he picked the 18-years old Alex up at her idiot of a father, taught her everything she needed to know about the business and treated her somewhat like family has nothing to do with this. In the end she is only a member of the drug cartel who screwed up.

“Sit down”, he eventually says and points with the glass in his hand to the empty place next to himself.

So she sits and eyes the screen, too. She doesn’t really care about soccer, but it’s either watching the match with pretended interest or panicking. And she sure as hell won’t allow herself to panic, since Alex Vause doesn’t panic. She gets angry and upset, she screams and cusses, but she doesn’t panic.

Fahri puts his glass down on the small coffee table, stands up and walks over to the bar at the other side of the room to grab a new bottle of whiskey as well as another empty glass. He sits back down, fills both glasses with the expensive liquor and hands one of them to Alex. She takes it with a thankful nod, but doesn’t make a move in order to sip it.

“So, what now?”, she asks after almost three minutes of silence as calm as possible to hide her very unpleasant feelings.

“We wait for Kubra”, he answers as if it would be the only logical thing to do right now and Alex downs her drink.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 2 12:41 AM

The only sounds echoing in the dimly lit office are the ticking of the wall clock, the working CPU of her computer and the faint snoring of her colleague.

Nicky has her head bent back, tilted to the right and the mouth slightly opened. Some saliva pools in the corner of her mouth. Her left arm is stretched above her belly, the right one hangs limply off the body. Her feet are cross-over propped up on the desk. According to Piper this position seems to be likewise absolutely uncomfortable and enviable. She herself stares at her flickering monitor, leaning on her elbows.

They arrived around 9 PM at the forensics and delivered all evidence to be examined. After that they got back to their office to start the investigation itself. Finding out the name of the owner of the suitcase was pretty easy, at least the surname. It was printed on the identification-tag, after all.

Smith.

Unfortunately, not really an uncommon name and the security service of the airport allowed themselves plenty of time to send them a list with the passengers of flight LH-404. Time, Nicky used to fall asleep on her chair.

At 11:02 PM Piper held an old-fashioned fax in her hands, a long list of names which she swiftly skimmed. It didn’t take long to find the full name of the vanished owner.

Leila Smith.

She fed a few tracing files with the name and waited, falling asleep momentarily.

She looks at the clock. 12:42 AM. And back at the screen. A window flashes and instantly her tiredness is gone. The name actually appears in the criminal records.

Piper clicks on the search results and a new window opens, showing a mugshot of a young woman; early twenties, short dark-blonde hair, grey eyes and thin face.

She got arrested three years ago for driving without a license, a relatively minor and for the case completely uninteresting offense, but she has a record and in this moment that’s everything Piper has.

She already turns around to wake up Nicky in order to tell her about the discovery, as the phone rings and undertakes this task.

“Wha-?”, Nicky mumbles still half-asleep as she opens her eyes slowly and turns her head towards the annoying ringing. Thereby her feet slip off the desk and fall to the ground, causing her to almost fall out of the chair.

Piper takes the call and watches amused as Nicky can just about prevent her fall by grabbing the edge of the desk. “Chapman?”

“Forensics, here. We found some prints, already checking the files”, a very tired voice tells her.

“Great.”

“And we’ve got one hit by now. A certain… Leila Smith.”

Piper’s eyes widen and her lips form a small grin. She briefly scans her own find again. “Resident in Manhattan?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Wonderful, thank you. Send me all you’ve got up here and keep me up to date”, Piper doesn’t wait for an answer, she simply hangs up and turns back to Nicky who stares tired but expectantly at her. “We’ve got an address.”

Piper writes the address down, grabs her badge and gun and gets ready to take off. Nicky stays seated and watches her puzzled.

“What, you wanna go _now_?!”, Nicky asks incredulous and looks at her, at the clock and back at her.

“Got something better to do?”

“Actually, yeah”, she throws her legs on the desk once more, settles back and closes her eyes.

Piper sighs and hangs her head for a second, before she stands up and leans herself against Nicky’s desk. Her colleague doesn’t react in any way.

“Nicky-”

“Agent Nichols is currently unavailable. Please try again later”, she mumbles and makes herself more comfortable in the chair.

Piper thinks about what to say to the stubborn woman to convince her of standing up and going to work without using any force as she gets an idea. She smirks mischievously at her. “If you don’t get up now, I’ll tell Red that you rather sleep at work than doing it.”

At that name Nicky opens one eye and furrows her brow. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“It’s way too long ago since I was at _Dmitri’s_. I could take a circuit after work, eat some Vatrushki, get into a conversation, let some things slip. You know how that works.”

Nicky continues staring at Piper and considers calling her bluff, lastly though she swings her legs to the ground and grabs her own belongings. “You walk on thin ice, blondie.”

 

.oOo.

 

“If we run into my mother out here, I’ll kill you”, Nicky deadpans as they walk down a street on Upper East Side, searching for the apartment complex Leila lives in.

“It’s like half past one and freezing. I don’t think your mother is even outside of her bed.”

“Who knows, she could be vampire. I’m still waiting for the test results.”

They continue walking in silence until Piper suddenly stops and looks up and down a redbrick house. Nicky, who didn’t saw her stop, walks right into the side of the taller blonde.

“Gee, Chapman!”

“That’s it”, Piper says completely careless about her colleague at her side and walks to the entrance door.

They climb the stairs up to the third floor and go straight to a dark door with the number 307 painted white on it. Piper doesn’t hesitate but simply knocks at the door. “Miss Smith?”

No reaction. She knocks again, this time louder. “Miss Smith, open up.”

“You know, maybe she’s - I dunno - asleep? Some people tend to do that after midnight.”

Piper darts an annoyed glance at her colleague before knocking once more. “Police! Open up!”

She continues knocking for a few minutes, but eventually gives up and starts to turn away as Nicky raises one hand. “Wait”, she leans against the wooden door with her ear. “You hear that?”

“What?”

“I think someone’s screaming for help”, Nicky claims as everything in the corridor is completely silent.

“Nicky…”

“I swear”, she says while pulling a lock-pick set out of her pocket and starts to pick the lock, “I can hear it loud and clear.”

“That’s break-in and trespass.”

“No, no. _This_ is break-in”, she says, turns the lock-pick until the lock snaps audible back and opens the door. “And _this_ ”, she takes one step forward across the door sill, “is tres - whoa.”

“What?”, Piper asks as Nicky suddenly stopped speaking in the middle of the sentence and stands with wide opened eyes in the middle of the doorway, one hand still on the doorknob. She looks past the wild strawberry-blonde mane and gazes at pure chaos. She squeezes past Nicky into the apartment and turns the lights on.

The glass coffee-table lays scattered in form of hundreds pieces across the floor, a lamp seems to be knocked down from a cupboard, some dried blood is sprayed across the glass mess and the couch and a sharp butcher’s knife is plugged into the leather.

“I’ll call the forensic guys”, Nicky says, turns around and leaves the apartment again to make the call.

 

.oOo.

 

Newark, New Jersey  
Springfield/Belmont  
Day 2 01:26 AM

Alex is already asleep. She went to one of the rooms after Fahri told her that it would take a while until Kubra would be here and sent Billy away. Her sleep was stunningly calm and relaxing, but very light. Every tiny sound caused her to wake up, like when Kubra Balik finally enters the house.

The front door opens, two talking men enter and the door clicks shut again. The men go directly downstairs and Alex sits up, grabs her glasses and runs her fingers through her hair. A third man goes down into the basement and another pair of feet comes upstairs.

Somebody knocks at her door and opens it instantly without asking for permission. Light shines into the room and blinds Alex for a second. “It’s time”, Fahri says and turns around, waiting for Alex to follow him.

They go down to the first floor and then the basement. Fahri types the security code in the panel and opens the heavy door so that they can enter the isolated room.

Shelves are built up at the walls filled with cases full of counted money and measured drug packages. In the middle is a round table, intended for eight people. On the left and right doors lead to the basements of the other houses.

Kubra leans against the desk, next to him his always present bodyguard and Nasir. Fahri remains at the side of Alex, but takes a step to the side as Kubra approaches her.

“Take off your glasses”, is everything he says and Alex complies confused. He takes a swing at her and hits her face with the back of his right hand. Her head snaps to the side and her lip splits open. She tastes her own blood and turns her head back, fully anticipating another blow, but instead Kubra turns to Nasir. “Get her some ice.”

Nasir leaves the room and Kubra takes a step back again. Alex puts her glasses back on and feels surprisingly soothed.

“To say, I’m pissed”, he says, his eyes fixed on the blood which runs down Alex’s chin and hands her a handkerchief to wipe it away, “would be an understatement.”

“I’m sorry”, she responds, “but it isn’t my entire fault.”

“I know.”

Nasir steps back into the room and hands Alex an ice pack, which she promptly holds to the right side of her face. She flinches for a moment because of the cold before accustoming to it and welcoming the analgesic feeling.

“You cede the next few runs. Consider it a… vacation”, Kubra orders her with a glumly voice and slightly frustrated face and Alex remembers Michael’s and Billy’s words; _you’re irreplaceable_. He faces away from Alex and turns to Fahri, “the runner?”

“Was home, trying to grab some few things before running off”, Fahri replies, thinking of Leila, “they brought her to the docks.”

“Then don’t let us waste any more time”, he says and sends everyone out of the basement. Except for Nasir they all get into Kubra’s car and head for the docks in the south of Bayonne.

 

.oOo.

 

At the end of the unlit and empty dock kneels a woman, hands bound behind her back, a black bag pulled over her head. Two men stand at her side, holding her shoulders and keeping her down. Her arms have tiny cuts and blood is spread across her shirt. She’s shaking with cold and fear.

A faint whimper and sob is audible and gets louder as Alex, at the side of Kubra and Fahri, approaches her. Kubra carries a small case, which he deposits as he kneels before the woman and pulls the bag away from the head.

Short blonde hair, with panic filled eyes and a face smeared in blood come to light. The mouth is covered with duct tape which Kubra carefully tears off.

“Hello, Leila”, he says as he puts some leather gloves on. The young woman remains silent except for her whimpering and sobbing. “I am really and severely disappointed.”  He opens the case and draws a gun and a suppressor out. Slowly he stands up and screws the parts together.

“Please”, Leila whimpers and looks at Alex with watery eyes who remains silent and inactive. She doesn’t like what’s about to happen, but it’s part of the business. Everybody knows what to expect when you _disappoint_ Kubra. This is a drug cartel after all.

“No, no”, Kubra says shaking his head and grabs Leila’s chin to turn her head back and forces her to face him. His voice is calm and soft, almost friendly, “you forfeited your chance at the very moment you left the bag at the airport.” He points the gun at her face. “Tell me, how much did we lose because of you?”

Leila doesn’t answer, plainly keeps shivering and sobbing, her eyes twitch, her lips tremble.

“Alex?”, he asks as Leila keeps quiet, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Twenty pounds”, she replies in a calm but faint voice.

“Twenty pounds”, he repeats, “do you want to know how much that’s worth?” He releases the safety catch of his gun. “Half a million.” And pulls the trigger without hesitation.

The head snaps back at first before it hangs down, the entire body slumps and falls to the side as the two men let go of her shoulders. Slowly the dark blood spreads under the body, causing the dusting of snow to melt.

“Clean up”, Kubra tells them and then turns to Alex, “and you be more careful with picking your sweet, little girls.”

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 2 04:53 PM

The train squeals loud as it stops at 7 Av, the doors open and Piper gets off together with a dozen or so other people. She climbs up the stairs and steps into the daylight.

To say that she’s tired would be an understatement. Unlike Nicky she isn’t able to sleep comfortable and in long terms in an office chair. All she could do was nod off every few hours for about thirty minutes maximum.

It took the forensics over two hours to check the room completely and it wasn’t until 5 AM that Piper and Nicky got back to the DEA office, where they issued a warrant for arrest as well as a report for possible abduction.

Piper took a shower in the bathroom and changed into a second wardrobe she always had present for cases like these before she and Nicky headed back to the Upper East Side later that morning in order to question some of the neighbors. Of course nobody had seen or heard anything, it would’ve made the case too easy anyway.

Back at the office again they had a short meeting with Caputo to keep him up to date about the current situation, but they didn’t have much to report. Forensics found blood from two different people at the apartment but without a sample they couldn’t do anything with it, the other fingerprints on the suitcase got no hits as well and in the end the chief sent them off early at 4 PM to finally go home after an over thirty hours shift.

So here she is, walking down the street on her way home to the small house where she lives with her fiancé. Going home somehow raises mixed feelings in her. On the one hand she’s happy to finally call it a day and rest for a couple of hours in her very own bed between warm sheets. But on the other hand she is anything but happy about the conversation she’s going to have.

She opens the door to the house, enters and calls for her fiancé, “Larry?” She discards her purse and takes off her thick winter jacket while going to the living room where she tosses the jacket together with her gloves and scarf on the couch. For a moment she considers tossing herself right next to it, but then decides that having a coffee is more urgent.

She steps into the kitchen where Larry is sitting and facing her with a neutral gaze. “Hey”, she greets him with a peck on the lips before turning to the coffee machine.

“You’re late”, is all he says.

Piper gazes swiftly at the clock. “Technically I’m damn early for today.”

“You promised.”

_Here we go_ , Piper thinks sullen, places her cup under the machine and presses the button. The warm liquid pours into the cup. “I promised to _try_.”

“I waited half the night for you.”

“That’s hardly my fault.”

“If you’d work less-”

“I’d get fired”, she cuts him off. This is an old discussion between the two of them, which repeats itself every time she does long hours like a broken record for months now.

“It can’t even be legal to have so much overtime!”

“I hate your stern voice”, Piper mumbles and sips at her coffee to boot her body after hours of work, while sighing softly.

“What was that?”, Larry asks irritated and stands up from his chair, his gaze fixed on his fiancé.

“What’s the alternative, Larry? I’m a DEA Agent. Doing overtime is part of the job and brings lots of money.” She takes another sip and adds a “money, we need”, as he doesn’t react.

“We could do without the extra money.”

“No, we couldn’t I’m sorry that you’re sitting hear all day, bored out of your mind, but one of us has to pay the rent.”

“I’m working, too!”

Piper simply scoffs and shakes her head. _That barely qualifies as work_ , she thinks to herself. Sitting at home all day long, trying to write articles, but never publishing one. And if he does, what does he bring home? Fifty dollars?

“I don’t want to have this discussion right now”, she eventually says dryly, puts her cup in the sink and goes back to the living room to pick up her jacket.

“Where’re you going?”

“Out”, is all she says as she lifts her purse. She has to get out of this house before she says or does things she’d regret afterwards. She’d preferably go running, like she always does when she’s upset, but for that she’d have to change her clothes and right now any more second in Larry’s presence would be fatal.

“You just came home”, he states distressed, his anger suddenly completely vanished.

Piper opens the door and steps out without turning back to him. “And now I’m going again.” She closes the door behind her and walks along the street.

After a few blocks she can feel the cold creep into her body, she wears her jacket, but completely forgot about anything else. She doesn’t wear a scarf or any gloves and her shoes aren’t suitable for long walks in the cold.

She arrives at a bar and steps in to at least get warmer for a few minutes. It’s not really busy, only three tables are occupied. A man sits in front of two glasses of beer next to the door, at another table two women are talking and the third table is filled with a group of five women and one man.

Piper approaches the bar and takes a seat. Her gaze wanders absently across the bottles of alcohol on the shelves behind the counter, as suddenly a raspy voice calls out:

“Hey you, Laura Ingalls Wilder!”

_to be continued..._


	3. Broken I

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 2 04:12 PM

“He punched you?”, are the first words Billy blathers as he takes the seat next to Alex at the table in the yet empty bar.

“More like slapped”, she answers and then raises an eyebrow wondering, “how’d you know?”

“You may have covered your bruised cheek well, but your bleeding lip betrays you.”

Alex runs two fingers across her lips and feels the warm, viscous fluid she’d rather have inside of her body than on it. “Shit”, she mumbles huffy and grabs a napkin to wipe the blood away.

“So, what happened?”

“He slapped me, suspended me and _advised_ me to be more careful with picking my _sweet, little girls_.”

“But you’re still alive.”

“Obviously. And I plan on keeping it that way”, she raises her beer mocking cheers and drinks it, her smirk finally back on the face since she’s confident about staying alive.

“Smart”, Billy approves dryly, “so, what are we doing here?”

“Being careful with picking my sweet, little girls.”

“I thought you’re suspended?”

“Yet I need new mules since Leila… retired.”

He simply nods agreeing and orders himself a beer. After a while other people enter the bar; two duos as well as other members of the cartel Alex asked them to join her and Billy because she says that it’s easier to lure someone with a group rather than alone.

It takes a while until somebody enters the bar alone and Alex and Billy instantly cast glances at the blonde.

“What about her?”, Billy directly whispers and nods towards the young woman, “she’s neither sweet nor little. More like hot and tall.”

Alex stares startled at Billy, “what do you know about hot women?” He rolls his eyes as answer and Alex looks back to the blonde. “And she’s not _that_ tall, she’s wearing heels.”

And also a thick winter jacket not matching the rest of her outfit, a formal pantsuit. She rubs her apparently cold hands as she goes straight towards the bar.

“You wouldn’t even need to dress her up; she already looks all like business.”

Alex shakes her head, “she doesn’t fit the concept: She has a job important enough to dress up for it.” She looks her up and down and adds a disapproving “though obviously not paid well enough to do it high-class.” And there is something else Alex can’t name, something that gives her a strange feeling she can’t explain. It’s about the blonde’s aura. She seems tense and distressed as her gaze wanders across the different liquors.

“Sounds like a pretty shitty job.”

“Probably with promotion prospects though. I don’t think she’d give that up, even if she’s the adventurous type.”

“So, she’s a no-go?”

She doesn’t answer Billy, but keeps eying the other woman thorough as the words slip out of her mouth, “Hey you, Laura Ingalls Wilder!”

The blonde glances around confused until her eyes lock with Alex’s who moves her beer bottle lazily in circles smirking at her.

“We’re skipping America before the apocalypse, you wanna come?”

A very faint smile adorns her face as the blonde wants to answer, but then gets interrupted by the barkeeper. She orders a margarita and has apparently already forgotten about Alex, she doesn’t turn around again to give her planned answer.

“Laura Ingalls Wilder?”, Billy chuckles next to Alex who simply shrugs. She doesn’t know why she used that name, it plainly flashed through her mind.

As the barkeeper mixes the margarita, Alex stands up, walks over and sits beside the woman who still rubs her hands, while her colleagues from the cartel cheer her on silently. The blonde doesn’t even realize that the drink is being placed in front of her, which Alex puts on her tab with a hand sign to the barkeeper.

“It’s a little cold out for a margarita, don’t you think?”

“Never too cold for tequila in any form”, is her only answer spoken with an unexpected sincerity despite her still present though very faint smile. Her eyes never leave her own hands and not until now Alex realizes that she doesn’t rub them out of cold, she twiddles with a ring on her ring finger, probably an engagement ring.

“Tough day?”

“Something like that”, she mumbles, lets her ring go and turns towards Alex, her gaze dropping instantly to her bruised lip. She furrows her brow, “Yours, too?”

Alex touches her own lips once more and sighs as she feels some blood again. “I slipped on the ice.”

“Sure”, the blonde answers doubtfully, but drops the topic and hands her the napkin from under her margarita she finally notices and drinks. In big gulps.

Alex observes the behavior and meanwhile has a closer look at her blue eyes. They seem tired, stressed and hurt, filled with frustration. And the fact that her glass is already empty emphasizes these negative vibes. Something recently happened to her, and it seems to have to do with her potential fiancé or her work, since she’s dressed as if she just came out of an office. Maybe even both.

“You know if you wanna talk about it… That’s what therapists are for”, Alex says and chuckles husky as the blonde shoves her shoulder playfully. “Seriously though, wanna talk about it?”

“Wow, we’re not even on an any-name basis and you offer me therapy?”, the other woman counters, her smile increasing.

“Alex”, she introduces herself smirking and reaches her hand out.

The blonde snorts with laugher and shakes Alex’s hand, “Piper.”

There are a few moments of weird silence as the two simply look into each other’s eyes, before Piper continues with the question “so, Alex, what do you do? Besides offering therapy to strangers at bars.”

For a second Alex wants to tell her the truth, like she often does, but something about these strange vibes Piper radiates tells her not to. Instead she goes with a safe “I’m an importer”, which Piper seems to accept without any further comment. “But speaking of therapy-“

The from Alex hard-earned smile on Piper’s face vanishes within milliseconds as she takes a deep breath and shakes her head. Her glance shifts back to her empty glass. “I don’t want to bore anybody with my problems.”

Alex nods shortly. She doesn’t need to be a psychic to tell that Piper obviously doesn’t want to talk about whatever put her in this state. But that won’t deter her intention to spend the rest of this very stressful day with her.

“Well, what about fleeing the apocalypse then?”

 

.oOo.

 

Piper isn’t really sure why she’s doing this. She should go home and try to either talk to Larry in a reasonable way without any finger-pointing at each other or to avoid any of their problematic topics as usual.

Instead she lets herself being seduced by the charm of the dark-haired woman. Her always present smirk, the black-rimmed glasses, behind which her gray-greenish eyes are hiding, the purposely displayed tattoos on her arms. This woman cries out for mystery.

Lots of small voices in her head tell Piper to stay away from this woman. This can’t end well. This woman hides something big, possibly dangerous. But in this moment Piper doesn’t care, she loves mysteries, she loves solving them and like in a daze she follows Alex to the group she sat with as Piper entered the bar.

“Ladies, let me introduce you to Piper”, Alex says and drags another chair to the table, shoves Piper on it and takes the seat right next to her.

After a short introduction, throughout which Piper already forgot most of the names again, they all down their drinks before starting a new round including her.

No one of the others seems to mind her intruding their hanging out, but include her happily into their conversations. They talk about ordinary stuff like books, favorite bands and laugh at stupid jokes. The topic of work in any kind doesn’t come up though, not that Piper minds. Telling people that she’s a cop always has a taste of bitterness. Everyone reacts different to that statement, but rarely positive.

Suddenly Alex stands up and walks over to the bar to pay the bill for the complete group plus Piper. As she comes back, she links arms with Piper and drags her out of the bar, followed by the rest of the group.

“Where are we going?”, Piper asks uneasy. She expected a cozy get-together in the bar, drinking and laughing with total strangers, but not getting dragged out into the late evening’s cold.

“We can’t flee in a bar”, Alex explains, her smirk forming into a grin as she hails a taxi.

“Nowhere near enough music and morale”, Billy agrees and gets into the cab behind Alex and Piper while the others take a second one and follow theirs to an address in Greenwich Village.

 _What have I gotten myself into?_ , Piper asks herself over and over again as she stands in front of the entrance to an exclusive club, still in her outfit she changed into at work. She doesn’t even know what she looks like - the last time she looked at herself in a mirror was at the office after using the toilette – but it can’t be that good considering that she worked well over thirty hours with a total of three hours sleep since waking up yesterday morning, if at all.

And here she stands in front of an exquisite club for which normal people have to stand in line for hours before paying horrendous entrance fees. The whole group is let in after Alex tells the tall security man her name and is brought to a separated lounge with a view at the slowly filling dance floor. Alex whispers something to the tall man and pads his shoulder, dismissing him, before she crashes next to Piper on a sofa.

Moments later a lean man with gelled blonde hair dressed completely in black with the name of the club stitched on the front of his tee joins them. “What do you wish, Miss Vause?”

“A round of tequila”, she answers firm and smirks at Piper before throwing an arm around the blonde’s shoulders and looking back to the lean man, “better two.” The man simply nods and leaves them again.

“Who are you?”, Piper asks perplexed with a loud voice to be audible with the music blasting through the rooms.

“I know the owner”, Alex shrugs it off.

More silence fills the air between Piper and Alex while they gaze at each other. The others are engrossed in a conversation Piper doesn’t really follow until the lean man returns and gets cheered on by the group as he puts the fourteen shots down.

“Well, here’s to the apocalypse”, Alex raises her first glass and downs the tequila, her eyes fixed firmly at Piper’s. The others follow suit and chug the second one right behind.

“I have to say, I imagined fleeing the apocalypse different”, Piper mumbles and shifts uncomfortably on the sofa.

She doesn’t like these big clubs very much. It’s not that she doesn’t like music and dancing, but she can’t relax in places like this. That’s one of the downsides of her job; whenever she is at these exquisite clubs, she expects seeing rich young men and women snorting lines of coke everywhere she lays her eyes on.

Alex seems to sense Piper’s indisposition because suddenly she grabs her hand and drags her over to the dance floor.

“What’s going on?”, she asks with a nervous laugh.

“You need to loosen up”, Alex breaths with her husky voice and begins to move to the rhythm of the music, “just relax. Let it go.”

Still laughing and grinning nervously, Piper starts to move with Alex, wild and out of beat, just to do as Alex said, to let it go. With every beat rushing through her body she can feel the tension loosen and her grin widen.

Alex laughs as she sees Piper moving to the music and their dance evolves. Their moves are starting to match. Hands grab the other’s hands in a yet friendly manner. Eyes are looking at each other, filled with joy and a weird kind of intimacy. Dancing with Alex makes Piper feel as if she’d knew her way longer than a few hours.

Then suddenly something changes. Alex comes closer, her face inches away from Piper’s. She should move away, or say something, but as she stares into those darkening eyes behind the glasses, she can’t. She can see the danger this woman is, but all she feels is secureness.

Alex comes closer and closer, staring into Piper’s eyes until their lips meet. Piper sees Alex’s eyes closing and feels her hands touching her neck, running through her hair.

 _This is wrong_ , she thinks as she closes her eyes. _This is wrong_ , she returns the kiss, raises her hands, wraps her arms around Alex’s neck. _This is wrong_.

Alex’s hands wander downside her body, over her shoulders, along the sides and stop at her hips, pulling the slim body closer.

It’s passionate but gentle. It creates a rush and a feel of security. It’s like nothing Piper ever felt before, or so she guesses in this moment, driven by alcohol and lust, the feeling of being wanted shutting her ability to think rational down.

But then the fragile skin of Alex’s lip breaks again and Piper tastes the blood on her own lips, on her tongue and gets thrown back into reality. She opens her eyes. _This is wrong_ , she thinks yet again as she breaks the kiss and embrace and steps back.

She shakes the head slowly, her gaze fixed on Alex who watches her with a mix of desire and puzzlement. “This is wrong”, she repeats with a faint voice and her survival instincts for emotional chaos kicks in. She turns around and goes away.

“Piper!”, she can hear Alex calling out for her, but keeps on walking, she needs to get out and doesn’t stop until she stands in the cold of winter again, alone.

 

.oOo.

 

Kissing an engaged woman probably wasn’t one of Alex’s finest ideas, but she couldn’t resist. Looking into her eyes had an effect on Alex without the blonde even trying.

After she watched her vanish in the mass of other people on the dance floor, Alex steps back to the rest of her group from which only Billy acknowledges her return.

“Smooth move”, he laughs.

Alex replies with a simple “fuck you, too, pal” and rolls her eyes as she sits back down. She notices the jacket Piper left behind and runs a hand across the warm fabric.

“I guess she’s no candidate?”

Alex laughs low and shakes her head, “not as mule, no.”

He looks quizzically back at her while handing her another beer bottle, “but?”

“You were right”, she says and sips the beer, looking back at the direction where Piper left a few minutes ago with a genuine smile on her face, “she is hot and tall.”

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 3 12:27 AM

The drive back to Brooklyn was long and felt even longer as Piper’s mind wanders back to that mysterious woman. She still can feel her lips on her own, the hands caressing her skin and the blood on her tongue as she opens the door to her house carefully. Her body is shaking because of the cold, she realized too late that she left her jacket behind. Her vision is a blur because of the alcohol in her blood. And now that she opens the door and steps inside the dark corridor she isn’t sure what to think of what happened about an hour ago and now going back to her fiancé.

He’ll probably be off the wall, not just because of her leaving in the middle of an argument - again. But also for not returning until several hours later after midnight with the smell of alcohol stuck to her from head to toe.

She leaves her purse in the hallway and steps into the living room to check if Larry lies on the couch asleep as he often does when she comes home late because he nodded off while watching TV, but the room is as dark as the rest of the first floor and the couch empty.

So she begins to climb the stairs, taking off her blazer and adjusting her blouse on the way up. She can see a very faint light under the bedroom door and breathes deeply before she opens it.

Her gaze is instantly fixed on Larry who lies in bed, his head tilted to one side, the eyes closed, the mouth opened. His notebook is placed on his knees, illuminating the only bit of light in the room. His chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm and the fingers of his right hand twitch as if he’s still trying to write in his sleep.

With a small smile on her lips she puts the blazer aside and steps closer to the bed. She takes the notebook off his legs, closes it and deposits it on the nightstand. She sits down next to him and takes his right hand into her own, stroking his knuckles softly. For a moment she looks at his peaceful face but then simply closes her eyes and turns her head around.

It doesn’t happen often that Piper sees this expression on his face lately. Mostly it’s upset or annoyed, usually because she had to work late yet again. They’ve been together for quite some time now, but their honeymoon-phase was over long ago.

She tells him that she loves him daily. She’s happy to see him again after a long day. But after this night she questions if she truly does. After all, why should she have kissed Alex if she is so content with her life, her current situation, her fiancé? Because of the alcohol? Curiosity? Adventurousness? No, it felt different. It felt right.

She sighs deeply in thought and doesn’t notice that Larry woke up until she feels his hand touching her cheek, causing her to flinch startled and open her eyes again. Her head snaps to the side and her eyes meet Larry’s.

“Hey”, he whispers nearly bland, similar to his tone earlier this evening, “where’ve you been?”

“At a bar”, she explains without any other details. Little information is good. Give a short answer to a short question and the risk of saying foolish things is small.

Larry wrinkles his nose and sniffs like a dog for a few times before the corners of his mouth rise slightly, “I can tell.”

Piper nods, still stroking his hand and keeps quiet for a few seconds, sorting her thoughts, thinking about what she should tell him and what not. “We should talk”, she eventually says.

“We should”, he agrees immediately but shakes his head right after and withdraws his hand from Piper’s grasp, “but not today. I’m too tired and you’re too drunk.”

“Not the best basis”, she confirms and slurs the words slightly, which only certifies this statement.

_to be continued..._


	4. Broken II

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 3 09:02 AM

 _Coffee_ , are Piper’s first thoughts as she enters the building, grumbles a tired “morning” to other agents she walks by and steps into the elevator. She presses the same button as every morning and waits for it to lift her up to the third floor where her and Nicky’s office is located. Every time she stands in this tiny room she thinks about why she uses it to get two floors up instead of taking the stairs. As always she promises herself to forego the comfort and use the stairs next time, full knowing that she won’t do it anyway.

She removes her jacket and hangs it over the back of the chair. Nicky isn’t there yet, but that’s not uncommon. Her wild haired colleague is rarely punctual. Hell, it’s a wonder that Piper is punctual today considering how she feels.

Waking up was like hell, she was greeted with a murderous headache which grew even more intense with every second the annoying beeping of the alarm clock continued. It took a while until Piper hit the right button to stop the sound only to have it instantly replaced by the snoring of Larry who, as usual, didn’t wake up by the alarm. She watched him with envy, how he could just continue sleeping whereas she had to get going.

So she stood up, the world around her began to spin and turn, until she sat down again for a few seconds, rubbing her head, trying to ignore the pain and dizzy feeling. Somehow she made it to her bathroom, in the shower and put on some decent clothes for work where she is now.

She steps out of her office again and walks straight to the cafeteria to get her first coffee at work like every morning, but now she feels even more need for it.

Her eyes almost drop close as she leans against the counter and waits for the two cups to be filled.

“You look like crap, blanca”, are the first words she hears as she receives the two cups of coffee.

“Good morning to you, too, Mendoza”, Piper mutters, turns around and steps out of the cafeteria again while Mendoza gives orders to the other employees of the cafeteria in hasty Spanish.

Nicky must’ve came in while Piper was getting the coffee, she now sits on her chair, her feet propped up on her desk as always. As she sees Piper enter her tired gaze instantly fixes on one of the cups and her mouth forms a wide grin.

She stretches out her arm and makes gripping movements until Piper finally hands one of the cups over and leans herself against the desk next to Nicky’s feet. Sighing she sips her coffee and tries to fight off one of her worst hangovers in months.

“Why so grumpy?”, Nicky finally asks after studying Piper for some silent minutes.

“Long night”, is all she mumbles with her lips glued to the cup and closed eyes while she ponders if she has some medicine hidden in her desk.

“Stop talking”, Nicky raises her hand and grimaces, “I really don’t need any more stories from straight girls about their hetero-relationships. I’ve got enough of those from Lorna.”

“Oh, Larry had nothing to do with it”, Piper counters without really thinking about it. But then she sees the face Nicky makes, d _amnit_ , she has one eyebrow raised, a big-ass smirk replaced her coffee-drinking smile and her eyes are questioningly and hopefully wide.

“Do I smell a fan-fucking-tastic story?”

“Nope, just coffee”, Piper pushes herself away from Nicky’s desk and walks over to her own. She puts the now empty cup on the bright wood and bents down to switch on her computer.

Nicky turns around to face Piper who slumps in her own chair, the head rests on the desk. “Come on, we’ve nothing to do anyway.”

“Nothing to do? We’ve got a case.”

“Yeah, but we can’t do nothing without new clues.”

“We usually get clues when we investigate, Nicky”, she sighs, lifts her head and turns to the side. She opens several drawers until she finally finds a pack of aspirin. She pulls two tablets out and swallows them dry before remembering to check the date of expiry.

Which was four months ago.

 _Meh, whatever_ , she sighs again and throws the expired aspirin back in the drawer, closes it and lays her head back down on the wood hoping the medicine somehow still does what it’s supposed to do.

“Shut up and spill.”

“I’ve been to a bar. Then a club. And maybe drank a _little_ bit too much”, Piper eventually admits through gritted teeth, holding her thumb and index finger up to emphasize the word _little_ and faces her colleague. It would be no use to try to keep quiet about yesterday’s evening anyway. Nicky has a talent for being a pain in the ass until you say everything she wants to hear from you. A great feature as an investigator. But really annoying as a friend.

“You partied? Without me?”, she asks with an exaggerated hurt voice, places one hand on her heart and opens her eyes and mouth wide in mock-shock.

“Next time when I’m mad and plan to leave the house close to an emotional breakdown I’ll give ya a call.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“Something like that”, Piper mumbles and a small unconscious smile creeps on her face at the memory of the fact that her conversation with Alex started in a similar way.

Again she gets lost in thought as she considers what to say to Larry later when they’ll have their since long overdue talk. But now there’s more to talk about than just their endless arguing.

As much as she tried not to think about her, Alex was on her mind all night long. Her smirk and those darkened eyes moments before she leaned in to kiss her were glued to her retina. She saw it when she lied in bed slowly falling asleep and it was still there when she woke up with her headache. It’s a wonder she didn’t dream of her, too. Or maybe she did and she just forgot? She’ll never know.

Suddenly Piper acknowledges the hand which waggles in front of her face and the serious voice of her colleague. “Chapman? You home?”

Annoyed Piper slaps the hand away and gazes grimly at Nicky. “What?”

“I’m waiting for an answer for like five minutes now.”

“Answer to what?”

“If you wanna grab a drink after work”, Nicky sighs and leans back in her chair with which she rolled over to Piper.

“Do I look like I’d be up for drinks today?”

“Come on, I’m a good listener. Believe it or not.”

“You just love other’s dramas.”

“True”, Nicky laughs but her eyes are still sincere, she really seems to want to help Piper in some way.

“Today’s bad”, she shakes her head, she can’t delay the talk with her fiancé again, something has to happen in their relationship, “gladly tomorrow though.”

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Day 3 01:17 PM

One glance at the numbers flashing in bright red on the clock standing on her nightstand tells her one of the big advantages of not having to do any work for a while.

Sleep late. Really late.

No mobile rings in the middle of the night or early mornings, people calling and expecting answers, giving information or orders, scheming new arrangements. No e-mails expected to be answered all day long. No coffers need to be packed.

Instead Alex can use her time to lie in bed, to sleep, to think about other things than drugs. And in this moment a certain blonde fills her thoughts.

Her gaze wonders across the room to the open door which leads into the living room of her New Yorker apartment. Her vision is blurry, her glasses still on her nightstand, but she knows exactly that over one of the chairs in the next room a jacket is spread. A jacket with the smell of a stranger and alcohol.

A small smile settles on her face. She can’t explain why. She isn’t the type of person who feels anything about anybody besides her family which only consists of her mother who died years ago. Especially she doesn’t feel anything about somebody she met not even twenty-four hours ago. But this woman participates of something Alex feels drawn to.

It took a few moments until she came to terms with Piper just storming out of the club, not even coming back to get her jacket. And it took her even longer to concentrate back on the one task she gave herself to do; recruit possible mules. She wasn’t very successful though and had to go home empty handed, not literally since she took Piper’s jacket with her, and a liver running at full speed.

She shakes the memories of and gets out of her bed, puts her glasses on so that the world around her starts to get clear again.

Stretching and yawning she walks over to her kitchen, grabs her dressing gown midway, slips in and presses the warming fabric to her crawling skin, planning to prepare some breakfast or at this time better said lunch.

As she opens the fridge she stares at practically nothing though. She realizes she didn’t go grocery shopping since she’s been back from Europe yet. After the whole disaster regarding Leila, groceries weren’t really high on her list of priorities.

Sighing and mumbling annoyed cusses she closes the fridge and turns around again, she walks to her bathroom, takes a shower, brushes her teeth, applies her make-up, throws on some clothes and leaves her apartment, swinging a set of keys with her fingers.

It doesn’t take long until she steps out of a supermarket with two filled bags balancing on her arms on the way back to her car she parked in the nearest possible lot.

She just wants to grab for the door handle of the passenger door as she’s swept of her feet. The bags fall to the ground, the items scatter across the ground, some roll onto the street and get squashed by passing cars. Alex falls down to the sidewalk as well, but is able to cushion the fall with her arms until another body falls into her back and presses her prone into the pavement.

“Gee, fuck!”, she screams still lying under the weight of another person, “open your fucking eyes!”

“Sorry, sorry”, a familiar female voice reiterates in an apologetic tone and slowly the pressure on Alex’s body starts to decrease as the other woman stands up, “you alright?”

Alex turns to the woman who reached a hand out to her in order to help her stand up. As she realizes who she knocked down she takes a step back though. _It’s a small world_.

“Alex?”

Alex laughs hoarsely amused, stands back up and dusts the dirt off her clothes. “Hey, Piper.”

Across her stands indeed the same blonde who bailed on her in the club last night, shifting uncomfortably from one leg to the other, panting heavily. Her blonde hair sticks out messy under a thin beanie. She wears long sweatpants, a tracksuit top and runners, some white earphones dangle out of her collar playing soft music. A thin layer of sweat covers her skin which is a lot paler than yesterday. Her eyes seem glazed as if some of yesterday’s alcohol is still in her body system.

Piper is slim and seemed fit yesterday, but she wouldn’t have thought of her as a runner. Now though she can’t really stop herself from thinking about how gorgeous her toned legs probably look like.

“I get that I’m in your bad books now, but you don’t have to knock me down because of that”, Alex says sarcastically whereas Piper laughs awkwardly.

“Sorry, I’ve been lost in thought”, Piper’s gaze drops to the ground and switches to the groceries still scattered around the pavement. She inhales sharply between gritted teeth, “how much do I owe you?”

“Owe me?”, Alex glances around confused, not grasping what Piper meant until she sees what she’s staring at. She waves her hand in a refusing manner. “Nothing.”

“Come on, how much?”, Piper opens the zipper of her jacket and grabs into it to snatch her wallet out of an inside pocket.

“Piper”, Alex says stern and shakes her head to brush the topic off until Piper tucks her wallet away and closes her jacket again.

They remain silent as Alex begins to grab a few things to put back into the bags which weren’t broken by the fall. Piper shortly bents down to help her and Alex starts to ponder if she should apologize. She isn’t the type for apologies. Even Kubra rarely gets apologies for when she screws things up and if he does they’re usually followed by a sentence starting with _but_. And know that she thinks about it, she isn’t even sorry for the kiss. No, she won’t apologies for something she liked, for something what felt so good. For something she knew the blonde liked and wanted as well.

“Sorry again”, Piper rips her out of her thoughts and shocks her with an added “also for yesterday.”

Alex raises her eyebrows startled. Here she stands, considering if she should express an apology for last night and instead she gets one? She definitely didn’t expect that. “Why?”

“I just scrammed… after… you know.”

“Nevermind. I can’t say I wasn’t hurt”, Alex chuckles softly, “but I guess I just misread the signals.”

“Yeah…”, Piper mumbles less than convincing and Alex sees how she fiddles with her ring yet again, staring off into nothing. _No, I didn’t misread anything_ , she thinks and smiles inwardly.

“Oh, by the way, I’ve got your jacket”, Alex says incidentally as she opens her car and stows the remaining groceries away.

“Mh?” Piper’s eyes shoot up and meet Alex’s.

“Your jacket? You forgot at the club? I took it.”

“Oh?”

“I live just a few blocks down the street”, she says and points in the direction her apartment is located, “you could come along and get it.”

Piper seems to contemplate, shakes her head though as she looks at her watch, “my break’s almost over.”

“What, you go running in your break?”

She shrugs and laughs shortly. “It was either that or being questioned about my hangover this morning.”

“Lightweight, huh, kid?”, Alex assumes smirking.

The blonde blinks and chuckles, “apparently.”

Alex fetches a ballpen out of her pocket and steps closer to her, grabbing her hand. Piper wants to withdraw her hand startled and bewildered but Alex’s grip is too firm. She scribbles a number in blue ink on the skin of Piper’s palm.

“Just gimme a call when you’ve got time to get it”, she whispers, her voice even more husky than usual and winks at her.

“Uh-huh”, is Piper’s only reaction in combination with one single nod and a slightly opened mouth, her eyes never leaving the digits.

Alex laughs again, turns around and steps back into the supermarket with a huge grin on her face while calling back a simple “bye, Pipes!”

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 3 06:53 PM

More or less punctual Piper opens the door to her house and calls out to her fiancé; “Larry?”

“Here”, he calls back from the living room. She walks round the corner, still wearing her jacket. Larry sits on the couch and turns the TV off as she enters, then looks at her and frowns bewildered. “Why aren’t you wearing a warmer jacket? You must be freezing out there.”

Piper looks down at herself. Instead of her warm winter jacket she forgot at the club last night she wears a cardigan and windbreaker. “I left it at the bar.”

“Shall I get it?”, Larry instantly offers, “which bar were you?”

Piper shakes her head vehemently, “no, no. I’ll get it later…” _from Alex_ , she adds for herself and takes off her jacket, puts it away and sits beside Larry on the couch. “Let’s talk first.”

“Wow, straight to the point?”

“We can’t put this off any longer.”

Larry nods in agreement and rubs his forehead. “So, what do we need to talk about?”

 _What_ don’t _we need to talk about_ , Piper thinks shaking her head. But where to start she isn’t really sure herself.

The biggest issue in their relationship is the work and everything related to it. The fact that Piper does lots of extra hours. The fact that Larry doesn’t have a regular job.

And so this conversation starts with work as topic, too. It’s rare that this topic doesn’t end in a verbal fight, but Piper hopes for a miracle as she yet again lists all her reasons for her overtime, their very first issue of dispute. It are the same points as in every of their talks, but this time Larry listens, he doesn’t interrupt her, doesn’t gaze at her with a bugged look until she gets so annoyed herself that she simply changes into her sportswear and goes running.

Reason number one: It’s part of her job. Simple as that. She told him the same thing yesterday and so many times before. She’s a DEA Agent for crying out loud, if there’s a case, there’s a case. A fixed working schedule doesn’t really matter when it’s time to hunt down criminals. Every second you don’t investigate, but waste away on the couch is a second the felon’s chances to get away with his crime raises.

Larry listens, he nods, he agrees. Of course he agrees. He knew what he was getting into as they met. She told him that she’s a cop and seeks a career at the DEA or FBI as soon as he asked her about her job. He knew what negative aspects come with that and he said that he’d support her. It was one of the things she loved about him. So many people began to act weird around her as soon as she told them her profession, but not Larry.

Reason number two: Money. Extra hours bring more money. Night shifts bring even more money. Money, Piper and Larry really need as she told him yesterday. The rent, though not excessive, is high. Good food needs to be bought, bills need to be paid. And neither Piper nor Larry crave for asking their parents for financial support in any way.

Again Larry listens, he nods, he agrees. And as always reason number two leads to issue of dispute number two:

Larry’s job. Or more precisely that he doesn’t have one. He’s a journalist, an author, a _freelance_ author. He jumps from paper to paper and hopes to be able to publish some articles, get an assignment or even a job as interim. It’s not that Piper’s really upset by him doing what he loves, she’s always proud of her fiancé when he can convince a newspaper of publishing him. But it’s one of the reasons money is tight. Which is a reason for Piper’s extra hours. Which results in accusations on behalf of Larry. Which then causes Piper to point out the fact Larry doesn’t have a real job. It’s some fucked up doom loop.

Larry listens. Larry nods. Larry agrees.

And Piper is frustrated. “Don’t you have nothing to say?”

“Your job takes a shitload of time and mine leads nowhere. What’s left to say?”

She sighs and rubs her tired eyes. _What leads nowhere is this conversation_. “I want to _solve_ our problems, not just talk about them.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Get a fucking job!”, Piper answers harsh, direct and without hesitation, whereat Larry rolls his eyes and shakes his head. She’s so sick of this discussion, his stubbornness, this whole damned situation. “I don’t say you have to give up writing, Larry. But we need regular income”, she continues in a calmer voice.

“I’m searching for jobs almost daily.”

“No, you’re searching for assignments. That’s a difference.”

“Well, your cases would-”

“No”, Piper interrupts him in an instant and raises a hand to signal him that that is an absolute no-go. They had this discussion way too often. It’s almost as old as their work dispute, if not older. Put a journalist and a cop under a single roof? Of course this topic arises.

Piper told him in the very beginning that she has no authority to talk to the press about ongoing investigations without explicit permission. She mustn’t even talk about close cases. Especially not if the press is her fiancé. That’s not only a conflict of interests, it’s exploitation. “We discussed this too often, Larry.”

“You could at least recommend me.”

“The publicists have their own heads, Larry. That’s power play. It’s about politics not sympathy.”

He nods. He understands. He is frustrated. A feeling Piper shares. She could talk with him about all these topics for hours and hours and it’d still end in absolutely nothing. It’ll never change. It won’t change today either.

Sometime in the middle of this somehow pointless talk Larry asks her about the number written on her palm. The digits are blurry, the blue paint faint because of the shower she took after running in her break, but it’s still legible. She didn’t attach any value to the number after she’d written it on a piece of paper below the name _Alex_ and stuck it on the edge of her monitor with a small smile on her face. Nicky observed it in silence which surprised Piper. But she knows exactly that her foul-mouth of a colleague had her own thoughts about it and would take her up on it later.

“Just a lead in the current case”, Piper mumbles and suddenly asks herself, when she started to lie to her fiancé.

 

.oOo.

 

As expected the conversation headed nowhere. It has been the same old arguments, the same old discussion. The only real difference was that this time none of them raised the voice and Piper didn’t flee the house. Some progress at least, but none that matters.

She didn’t bring up Alex either. In her opinion there’s nothing to bring up after all and would only strain their relationship more. She _saw_ her once at a bar, bumped then into her while running and will visit her to get her jacket back, that’s all, there is no more and there will be no more.

But that’s not important now as she sits on a barstool next to her wild haired colleague and good friend Nicky one day later like she promised and listens to her telling a joke she said she was told by Red. It’s not their usual bar they visit after work with some of the other colleagues like Big Boo, who takes care of the drug-sniffing dogs, or Pornstache, the corrupt senior agent.

It’s the bar they go to when they want a rest from the DEA pack or need a place to talk without anyone putting his or her two cents in. This is the bar where they never talk about work. Sometimes you simply need a healthy and absolute distance to that specific topic.

“…and the penguin says; dude, he’s not an eggplant, he’s retarded!”, Nicky finishes her joke and Piper snorts with laugher until an older red-haired woman sitting across a tall black lady at the next table speaks up.

“You lost me at the umbrella.”

Confused Nicky turns around and faces the woman, for a moment Piper thinks she’s going to explain the joke to the stranger, but then Nicky shakes her head and concentrates her attention back to Piper. “So… Back to your party.”

Piper just nods. Of course Nicky wouldn’t tarry long to go back to that particular topic. She takes a mental note to bug her about Lorna Morello as revenge when the time’s right. “What d’you wanna know?”, she sighs and nips at her margarita. At least she learned from two nights ago not to down her drink in one. Or the following ones for that matter.

“Was a certain guy named Alex and a certain phone number involved with it?”, she asks with a big grin. There’s that question Piper waited twenty-four hours for Nicky to ask.

Piper’s first reaction is to want to correct her and say that Alex is not some certain guy but a certain hot and tall brunette. But then her gaze drifts to the entrance for a second. _What are the fucking odds?!_

“What’s wrong?”, Nicky asks and turns to the direction Piper looks at where a woman and a man enter the bar. Nothing special. She faces Piper again. “Chapman?”

“That’s… Alex.”

_to be continued..._


	5. Broken III

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Day 4 07:21 PM

Nicky’s head snaps back to the side, her gaze fixed on the man, she looks him over; short brown locks, dark eyes, brown rimmed glasses, a wide smile spread over his face as he listens to the woman.

She turns to Piper and furrows her brow in wariness. “I’m sure you as a straight gal see that different and I mean he looks kinda cute if you like it, but he doesn’t seem to be that much of an improvement.”

“Not the guy, the brunette”, Piper whispers as she leans closer to her colleague.

Nicky’s eyes widen instantly and she turns back around, this time eying Alex up and down. She smirks and nods approving as she faces Piper again, “so it really were Sapphic vibes.”

“Eh?”

“When we met the first time I…  Ah, nevermind”, Nicky dumps her history lesson and casts one more glance out of the corner of her eye at Alex, “let’s talk ‘bout your hot girlfriend.”

Piper rolls her eyes at Nicky calling Alex her girlfriend and sips her margarita. She looks over to Alex who sits down at a table on the far side of the room with the man whose name, as Piper remembers from two nights ago, is Billy. The two didn’t seem to notice Piper sitting here for which she is very thankful right now.

“What’s to talk about her?”

“Chapman, don’t make me worm it out of you”, she warns her with a threatening voice, “so, how’d you met her?”

“She offered me therapy”, Piper deadpans.

First Nicky is silent in confusion but then she begins to smirk. “I always wanted to tell you that you need therapy, glad I’m not the only one to see that.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Mature comeback. How’d you really meet?”

“At a bar. The therapy thing was for real, though.”

“So two days ago you got wasted with her?”, Nicky asks and Piper simply nods as confirmation, “some kind of therapy. Did it help at least?”

“At first.”

“And people always say alcohol is no solution.”

“Given how I felt the next morning I’m not sure they’re wrong”, Piper ponders while thinking back to yesterday’s headache which thankfully eventually reduced after taking the expired medication, but then returned in the shower after her running session. Going for a run with a hangover wasn’t really the smartest of her decisions.

“And yet you went running”, Nicky scolds her as if she could read Piper’s mind.

“The agony was pleasanter than you laughing at me.”

“It’s called _Schadenfreude_. You should try it sometimes. The Germans even call it the best form of joy.” Piper raises her eyebrows skeptically and tilts her head. “It’s true, look it up.”

“Since when do you know anything about the Germans besides their invention of heroin?”

“I know a lot of things you don’t know about, blondie, but that’s no matter right now. You said _at first_ , what happened?”

Piper shrugs and nips at her Margarita again. “I went clubbing with her group of friends.” Nicky indicates for Piper to continue as she stops and remembers smiling the moment she danced with Alex and looked into her dark eyes, the memory gives her goosebumps, the pleasant kind. “We danced.” She rubs her arms and clears her throat before she speaks again. “And kissed.”

“Chapman”, Nicky says and blows a whistle, then shakes her head and continues in a mock-scolding tone, “ _you_ , as an _engaged_ woman, kissed another woman?”

“You’re one to talk. You sleep with an engaged woman.”

“That I do, but I have no morals. Your morals on the other hand are higher than Bob Marley.”

“Apparently not”, Piper states but isn’t sure if she’s supposed to be proud of it or not. She was always told to do the right thing by her parents, even though her whole family lied to each other every day. But the simple thought of doing something which would bug her parents always put a smile on her face.

“Well, how did the story with hot-glasses end?”

“Basically with me running out of the club.”

“Tsk. Coward.”

Piper simply shrugs and drinks the rest of her margarita. She absently traces the rim of the empty glass with her fingers as she turns her head slightly to look at the brunette who has her back turned to Piper and seems to have a lightly discussion with Billy.

“Wait a minute. If you ran off, how did you get her number?”

“I ran into her yesterday”, Piper sighs, “literally.”

“At your break? And you didn’t think that’s something I should know?!”

“You asked about how I got to know her. Yesterday I already knew her.”

Nicky rolls her eyes, but doesn’t enlarge upon that discussion since technically Piper is right. “And here she sits again. The universe is trying to tell you something, blondie.”

“Yeah, to better get home right now”, Piper finally drags her eyes off Alex and reaches for her purse to pay her tab. She has the feeling that this whole situation won’t end well if she stays at the bar for any longer.

Something tells her she should stay. One tiny voice in her head. Or her heart? But the rest of her body screams at her to run as long as she has the chance.

“What the fuck are you doing?”, Nicky asks as she snatches the bills away from Piper.

“Paying for my drink”, she states dryly and takes her money back from her colleague who watches her in disbelief, “or did you plan on inviting me today?”

“Hell no, you’re not going now.”

“Stop me”, Piper challenges Nicky with a smile but soon loses her smug confidence as she sees the smirk. She knows this smirk, Nicky is up to something, something she most likely won’t like. “What?”, she asks uneasily, her smile falters.

Nicky’s smirk grows. “You don’t leave me hanging here alone”, she says in a loud voice which draws some attention from few other customers. Piper’s eyes widen as it dawns on her what her colleague has planned. Her hands shoot up and she tries to cover Nicky’s mouth, “Piper Elizabeth”, her fingers reach the loud mouth too late so that only her last name comes out in a muffled tone, “Chapman!”

Piper drops her hands to the table and looks in the direction of Alex, who turned her head to Piper and smirks as she spots the blonde sitting there.

“You are so going to regret that”, Piper grumbles through gritted teeth to a still mischievous grinning Nicky.

Nicky winks at her, “everything you can throw at me is worth watching your dramas.”

Groaning Piper lays her head on top of her hands and chants silent “why me _”s_ over and over again. Two pair of feet approach the table and suddenly a very familiar raspy voice speaks up, “are these free?”

“Sure”, Nicky answers and Piper can practically hear the shit-eating grin of that crazy woman.

“Hey there, stranger”, Alex greets Piper as the blonde slowly raises her head again and looks into those gray-greenish eyes. “Or should I call you stalker? Three days in a row can hardly be fortuity.”

 _Maybe it’s fortune_ , Piper almost says out loud, but stops as she opens her mouth, now sitting slightly awkward at the table, Nicky at her opposite, her eyes darting expectantly between her and Alex, who sits to her left, the smirk she already knows so well present and Billy to her right, with an overly friendly and kind smile. She clears her throat. “At least nobody got hurt this time”, she finally says and fends off this awkward silence.

Alex chuckles hoarsely, “the night’s still young”, it sounds like a promise and Piper can see a faint glint in those dark eyes as they stare at each other. Then Alex averts her eyes from the blonde and nods to Nicky, “who’s your friend?”

“Oh, yeah”, Piper stumbles for a second and points by turns at the others at the table, “Alex, Nicky, Billy.”

They nod at each other before Nicky suddenly asks Alex, “what’s your last name?”

Alex looks puzzled at Nicky then at Piper and back at Nicky.

“She has this weird thing going on with calling everybody by their last names. I know her for more than five years now and she still calls me Chapman”, Piper elaborates and then adds with a smirk directed to her colleague, “it’s surprising she calls her girlfriend by her forename.”

Nicky glares at her at the use of the term _girlfriend_ and mouths a “fuck you”. Piper continues to smirk and sticks her tongue out. It may be a childish gesture, but it serves its purpose.

“Vause”, Alex says to Nicky and tilts her head, “yours? It’s only fair I know yours, too.”

“Nichols.”

“Huh, so Nicky is a nickname for your surname?”

“Actually it’s short for Nicole”, Nicky says and rolls her eyes, it’s not hard to notice that she’s annoyed by her name.

Alex chuckles as she puts two and two together, “so your name is Nicole Nichols? Your mother must’ve hated you even as a sucker.”

Piper cringes for a second because she knows about the very cold and distant relationship Nicky has with her birthmother and once even had the _pleasure_ of being present when the two met. It was a complete senseless discussion Piper doesn’t even remember the topic of, but since that day she knows why Nicky rather calls Red her Mom than Marka. However Nicky simply shrugs her shoulders totally unaffected by that comment, “wouldn’t surprise me.”

The minutes pass, the talk continues. Billy is mostly silent as he has been two days ago at the bar and club, here and there throwing a comment into the running conversation. Nicky and Alex banter back and forth and Piper finds herself smiling at that sight. She doesn’t understand why, but seeing that Alex and her colleague and somewhat best friend get along well makes her happy.

Suddenly Alex surprises everyone at the table with a question directed towards Piper, “so how’s the fiancé?”

Piper’s eyes widen and she splutters. Not one single time Alex asked her anything about her current relationship. She saw her glimpsing at her engagement ring once or twice, but never did she say something about it.

“What?”, Alex chuckles as Piper stays silent, “you’d rather have me pretending furthermore not knowing what that ring stands for?”

“He’s… fine”, Piper says with a faint voice and coughs slightly.

“Please”, Nicky chimes in, “nothing’s fine in that relationship right now.”

Alex raises her eyebrows as she hears that and looks at Nicky with some kind of hope in her eyes whereas Piper stares at her with a mixture of puzzlement and temper.

“What?”, Nicky raises her voice, “c’mon, I hear you talking to him on the phone almost daily. Your words may still be full on romance mode, but you lost that certain mush in your voice months ago”, she fumbles with her hands as she continues, “let alone your fight two days ago and your talk yesterday. How’d that go by the way?”

Piper rolls her eyes at having thrown her current relationship problems in her face. But that feeling is suddenly gone as she sees the smile on Alex’s face. It’s not a smirk, it’s a smile. It’s gone after a second, but it was there, pure and genuine. “Okay, maybe it’s not exactly fine right now”, she huffs, “It’s… complicated.”

 

.oOo.

 

Alex watches Piper retreat after she excused herself to go to the restroom. She turns to the wild-haired friend of the blonde. “Is their relationship really doomed?”

“It definitely had better times”, Nicky answers with a shrug and then smirks eying Alex, “why, you interested in Chapman? Let me tell you, her fiancé is not _your_ problem to deal with, it’s hers.”

“Deep”, is all she says. She didn’t really care about Piper having a fiancé in the first place, so there’s no reason to start with it now. Especially when she seems to have problems with him anyway.

“Just don’t break that tiny blonde heart, Vause”, Nicky jolts her out of her thoughts, “I don’t wanna be forced to kill you when I just started to like you.”

Alex is surprised by that cold spoken advisory. She could sense that the two were close, but she wouldn’t have expected such a declaration. “I don’t plan to”, she answers with unexpected honesty. She really doesn’t plan to break her heart, she realizes, and that is something new. Never before did she really care for the feelings of others, but Piper… She doesn’t even know the woman for a week, but already feels more for her than for every other woman she ever met.

“Good”, Nicky nods, her cold voice and expression completely vanished.

“She means a lot to you”, it isn’t a question, it’s a statement.

Nicky stays silent for a few seconds, her eyes drawn to the table, obviously deep in thought before she raises her gaze to Alex, “there aren’t many people who know me for who I am and still decide to like me.”

“And yet you still tease her like that?”

“Hey, it’s part of who I am”, Nicky laughs and Alex shakes her head smiling. She can see the sincerity in Nicky’s eyes, hidden behind high walls built up over the years to protect her, something Alex is very familiar with, but visible for the tiniest second. “And now a change of subject please, this was enough touching stuff to last for a year.”

A few more seconds pass and Piper still isn’t back from the restroom, so Alex puts her beer down and stands up. As Nicky watches her curious, she simply states, “I’m gonna take your advice.”

“What advice?”, Nicky calls after her as Alex turns around and walks away.

“He isn’t my problem”, she shouts back over her shoulder before entering the women’s restroom.

Piper stands in front of a mirror, her hands grab the edges of the sink, her head hangs, the blonde streaks cover her face in the reflection, so she can’t see Alex approach from behind.

“Why so mopy?”, Alex whispers into her ear, causing Piper to scream and jump in surprise.

The blonde turns around immediately, her hands move to her right hip on instinct, a reflex Alex has seen before but can’t place right now. Their faces are now only inches away from each other. “Jeeze, Alex, are you trying to kill me?!”

Alex laughs shortly, but then simply smiles and tucks one of the blonde streaks behind the ear. She looks her directly in the eyes. Those blue eyes with a faint grey touch. And suddenly she feels like she felt at the club when their dance changed. The urge for more. What are those eyes doing to her? “You know, I was thinking”, she says, her voice still merely a whisper.

Piper swallows as she holds Alex’s gaze, “yeah?”

Alex lowers her fingers from Piper’s ears and traces her jawline, her eyes drop to the lips, slightly apart. “I like pretending that ring doesn’t exist.” She moves her hand to Piper’s neck and closes the short gap between their faces until their lips meet.

She nips at her lower lip, then brushes her tongue against it, asking, begging for entrance, but something is off. She can feel the heated skin, she feels the want Piper radiates, but she doesn’t feel the kiss being returned.

This time Alex is the one to pull away, her hand still at Piper’s neck, her eyes full of worry. Was it misinterpretation after all? She can’t say it as she looks into the blue eyes. Piper is thinking, that’s all she can see.

“Me too”, the blonde suddenly whispers leaning forward.

It doesn’t take long for the second kiss to turn wilder, as tongues brush against each other and hands start to roam. Alex presses her body against Piper whose back thereby gets pressed into the sink, her right hand is still at her neck holding the head in place while her left hand creeps under the blouse and slowly up the stomach and ribcage.

When Alex reaches one breast and squeezes it slightly, Piper moans and tilts her head back, their mouths apart again. But Alex simply moves on to the throat and places wet kisses along the neck.

Suddenly someone clears her throat, causing Alex and Piper to jump and break apart, something they both dislike in this situation.

Piper’s face flushes in deep red and she reaches for her blouse to straighten it as she sees an unfamiliar woman standing in the entrance, watching them both before she goes further into the room and enters one of the stalls without another comment.

Alex simply smirks at Piper and gives her one last peck on the lips, before she leads her out of the restroom.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 4 10:14 PM

Piper enters her house like every evening. She told Larry it’s going to be late again before she headed to the bar with Nicky. She knew the risk of another fight coming up, but she didn’t care at that moment. And with the latest memories she cares even less.

Her mind is filled with pictures of Alex laughing and smirking. With the feeling of her lips against her skin. She can’t help but smile as she sways the stairs up, but drops it instantly as she steps into her bedroom.

She didn’t think of one tiny fact. In the end of the day she still has to lie down next to Larry, something she really doesn’t feel like doing right now.

She hopes he’s already asleep, that he won’t want to discuss anything and she can just lay down and dream about what ever might have happened if that woman wouldn’t have interrupt her and Alex in the restroom.

But he is awake. The lamp on the nightstand is turned on as well as the notebook in his lap. He smiles wide at her as she enters the room. “Hey, sweetie.”

“Hi…”

“Had a nice evening with your colleagues?”, he asks and that’s something new. Or at least something rare. He mostly gets pissed when she goes out with colleagues after work.

“Yeah”, she says with a distant voice but thinks more about Alex than anything even remotely work-related.

“That’s good”, he nods and puts his laptop aside and leans against the bedhead. He smiles flirtingly, Piper knows this smile and already sighs inwardly before he even crooks his finger to beckon her to him.

“I’m not in the mood”, she says. A lie. She is in the mood, she is more in the mood than ever these last weeks, but it’s not Larry she wants to squirm under.

“Come on”, he crawls to the end of the bed where Piper stands, still full dressed, and straightens himself. He takes off her blazer, but Piper steps back, as he begins to pull at her blouse as well.

“No, really.”

“You’re never in the mood”, he sighs and stands up, “is it so terrible to sleep with me?”

“Larry, I…”, she begins but then trails off. She turns her head to look out of the window into the dark, some rain splashes against the glass and suddenly she hears herself saying “I think we need a break.”

Larry chuckles awkwardly, not sure if she just told him a joke or some horrible truth, “what?”

She sighs, nods, tries to assure herself. _It’s the right thing to do_ , she says to herself in her head. Something like this was inevitable anyway, now that it slipped out of her mouth she can as well go with it. “I’ll take the couch.”

“Wait”, he grabs her arm as she turns to leave and huffs, “are you for real?”

She says nothing, just stands there awkwardly, not even trying to pull her arm out of Larry’s grasp even though her skin crawls under his touch and this time it’s definitely not in a pleasant way.

“You are serious”, he realizes shocked, “why?”

“Larry, we’re growing apart for months.”

“Is there someone else?”, his voice is angry, so are his eyes as Piper turns to look at him.

She shakes her head, but doesn’t really deny it. She simply states “that has nothing to do with it.”

“So there is”, he says cold, lets go of Piper’s arm and runs his hand through his hair.

“Larry-“, she begins with a soft voice but immediately gets cut off by him.

“Now I get that you won’t sleep with me”, he actually laughs at this, but his eyes are still full of fury, “you rather spread your legs for some other dick, what?”

“I don’t-“, she tries to tell him in a calm voice despite her anger boiling up inside of her at his choice of words, but he cuts her off again.

“I don’t want to hear it. Any of it. Take your stupid, fucking bed”, he turns around and grabs his pillow and laptop, then leaves the room without another word and shuts the door behind him with a lout thump.

Piper sighs as she sits down on the edge of the bed. This didn’t really go the way she thought this conversation would go. She looks down at her hand, at the ring which sparkles slightly in the faint light. She takes it off and puts it on the nightstand. _I guess it’s the outcome that matters_.

_to be continued..._


	6. Healing I

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Day 4 09:11 PM

“Alex, are you with me?”, Billy asks as he wavers has hand in front of the brunette’s eyes.

It takes her a moment to snap back into reality, she turns to her friend and furrows her brow at his concerned expression. “You say something?”

“Damn, I never thought I’d see you going all the way in puppy love mode.”

“What?”, she asks irritated and swiftly changes her face into a completely emotionless expression.

“The two are gone for five minutes and you did nothing but stare in the direction they left.”

“No, I didn’t”, she scoffs and Billy raises his hands in surrender. After another few seconds of silence Alex suggests, “maybe we should head to a college bar tomorrow.”

“Why a college bar?”

“Well, for one thing it’s more likely to find potential mules in a bunch of college girls. And on the other hand…”, she trails off as she catches a glimpse of Billy’s smug smile.

“We won’t run into a certain blonde?”, he finishes her sentence.

“Oh, fuck off”, she dismisses him. But he’s right, it is the other reason. She now ran into the blonde three days in a row, if that frequency carries on she’ll never find what she’s actually looking for.

Alex can’t concentrate once Piper is near her. It is as if she’d cast a spell on her. And she needs to concentrate, she needs a clear head if she doesn’t want to fuck up her choice in the next mule. One poor choice and she’ll create another Leila. Another dead mule. And she’ll return to square one, just with a much less forgiving Kubra.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 5 10:19 AM

A loud ring resonates as the elevator comes to a hold on the third floor and the doors open. Piper rushes out of the tiny room before the doors even slid completely to the side and heads straight to her office, ignoring every single greeting of the other agents. She bursts through the door and crashes onto her chair sighing heavily.

“Look who decided to finally honor us with her presence”, a male voice greets her and Piper tenses. She turns around and only now acknowledges the presence of Caputo who leans against her partner’s desk, brushing his fingertips across his walrus mustache. Out of all days the chief decides to show up at her and Nicky’s office when she’s late, what a great timing.

“Good morning, Mr. Caputo”, she greets him with an apologetic smile and runs a hand through her hair.

He turns his head to Nicky and points at a stack of documents, “I need those in clean copy by tomorrow, understood?” Without waiting for her answer he pushes himself off the desk and leaves the office without bringing up Piper’s delay again, much to her benefit.

“Yeah, because I don’t have a fucking case or anything right now”, Nicky mutters, grabs the papers and drops them with a loud bang on the floor.

“I told you, you need to write more legibly.”

“Well, if we could just use the fucking computer that wouldn’t be a fucking problem”, Nicky curses and kicks the pile, sending a few of the papers across the office.

“Whoa, Nicky, chill. You just make yourself more work”, Piper tries to calm down her colleague, stands up and collects the files and papers and drops them back on the pile next to Nicky’s feet.

Her colleague sighs, takes a calming breath and then nods. “What’s with you and coming in late?”

Piper rolls her eyes at the change of topic. Her morning was anything but pleasant and basically an emotional sequel to every fight she and Larry ever had during their relationship.

After a wakeful night she went downstairs to grab her morning coffee. Larry already sat at the kitchen table, which was a very rare sight since he usually was still asleep when she headed off to work. He handed her a cup filled with the steaming black liquor. She took it gratefully, but cautiously.

“I’m sorry about how I reacted yesterday”, he finally said after a couple of silent seconds in which they simply stared at each other. She nodded and began to drink her coffee, but continued to look at him in silence. He cleared his throat, fidgeted with his fingers and looked away for a second before staring back into Piper’s eyes. “Is there really someone else?”

“I didn’t sleep with anybody”, she said in a calm tone but felt instantly awful as she saw how Larry sighed in relief and smiled a very thin but honest smile. “However”, she carried on and averted his eyes as she saw his smile falter as fast as it came up, “there is someone I feel… intrigued by.”

“Intrigued by”, he repeated in a mumble.

Piper reached out for his hands lying on the table. “Larry, I…”, she trailed off as he averted her touch and looked at her left hand.

“Already took off the ring, I see.”

She sighed again, looked at her hand as well before balling it into a fist and hiding under the table. She continued drinking her coffee and sitting at the table in silence without daring to catch a glimpse at the man with whom she had this very much undefined relationship now. “I’m really sorry, Larry”, she said as she finally looked into his brown eyes again.

He scoffed and shook his head. “That should be your slogan.”

She almost said it again, but caught the words before they left her throat and sighed instead.

“So, what now?”, he asked after a very long minute of nothing.

Piper only shrugged and stared at her now empty coffee cup.

“You didn’t really plan this through, huh?”

“I didn’t plan any of this”, she sighed and started to stand up, but Larry grabbed her arm and forced her to sit back down. “I need to go to work”, _and away from this house_ , she added just for herself.

“No, you need to talk to me. At least for once work can wait.”

He’s right, she knew that, so she settled back into the chair and slid her cup across the wooden surface. They began to talk about the usual, the broken record played yet again.

“Do you remember my proposal?”, he suddenly asked out of the blue.

Piper nodded with a small smile even though she’s bewildered why he came up with his proposal now of all times. “Of course I do.” She instantly felt the sand under her bare feet and the wind in her hair again, she could taste the salty air. It was beautiful, carved in her memories for ever.

“Why did you say yes?”

For a moment she just stared into his kind brown eyes, filled with unshed tears and smiled. “Because I loved you”, she said with honesty. And it was true, she loved him and she didn’t care about any problems they had then or might have in the future. She loved him, she didn’t have to think about his proposal for a second before she wrapped her arms around him crying and chanting “yes” over and over again.

“And now?”, a single tear dropped out of his eye and made its way down his cheek before he wiped it away with the heel of his hand.

She dropped her eyes to her own hands and sighed again. “I don’t know.” It wasn’t a lie or a coward’s excuse. She really didn’t know what she felt for him anymore, they had too many fights because of too many nonsense. She had too many nights when she wasn’t happy about returning home to him. And she had to figure out what she thought about Alex as well.

She wondered if the real problem began with Alex appearing in her life or if her presence just revealed them. After all even Nicky said that Piper wasn’t as happy with her relationship as she was months ago and she didn’t once really talk about it with her except for when Larry proposed.

“Yo Chapman, stop zoning out from me”, Nicky slaps her slightly in the face and Piper snaps back to the presence.

“Yeah… Yes”, she stammers and rubs her cheek where Nicky’s hand connected with her skin, “sorry, I had a… weird morning.”

“I can tell”, Nicky points to Piper’s left hand, “has your missing ring something to do with it?”

“Kind of”, Piper mumbles. Her ring still lies on the nightstand next to her bed where she left it last night after taking it off.

“And has Vause something to do with the missing ring?”, Nicky asks further and starts to sound as if she would be in the middle of an interrogation.

“Nicky”, Piper sighs and looks at her colleague. Her eyes are squinted, her mouth forms a sly smile.

“What happened in the restroom yesterday?”, Nicky asks next, completely ignoring the fact that Piper didn’t even answer her previous question.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, Chapman. You went in alone, she followed, you came out together. Your face red as a tomato with a wrinkled blouse and she with a big-ass smirk across her face.”

“Sounds like you already know what happened.”

“You’re no fun”, Nicky lastly says and leans back in her chair.

“Oh I am fun, I’m the definition of fun”, she deadpans, “and now hand me some of those files, I’m gonna help you with that.”

Drowning herself in work is something she’s really good at. It’ll keep her occupied, her mind off of other things. It basically equals to literally running from her problems.

 

.oOo.

 

“Thanks again for letting me stay here”, Piper says as she plops down on the bed couch in Nicky’s den. She somehow couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping at her tension filled home as she packed her things after work, so she curtly asked her colleague if she could occupy her couch for a night.

“No problem. For you I’d even prepare the guestroom - if I had one”, Nicky answers from her bedroom. As she enters the den she throws a pillow, a blanket and sheets next to Piper, “I don’t get why you didn’t ask Vause though, there you’d have a real bed after all. And a body to warm you up.”

Promptly the pillow makes its way back to Nicky, straight to her face to be exact.

“You’re so in denial, blondie”, Nicky laughs, throws the pillow back to Piper and leaves the room again, “Chinese sounds good to you?”

Piper moans at the thought of Chinese food, not only because it’s tasty as hell, but also because her grumbling stomach tells her for hours that she should finally eat something. “From The Palace?”

Nicky comes back and sits down next to Piper while staring at her mobile and typing a message. “Dunno, Lorna’s bringing”, she mumbles.

Piper smiles at that. “Lorna’s coming?” She hasn’t seen the ever cheerful Italian in a long while but always enjoyed her presence, at least when she was able to tune out her incidental racism.

“You don’t mind?”

“No, I wouldn’t have that right anyway, I’m the intruder here.”

“Sure you do, I just wouldn’t care”, Nicky says with a big grin on her face and earns a slap on her arm from Piper.

It doesn’t take long until Lorna comes over with bags full of Chinese food and they find themselves sitting at the table in the living room eating chop suey.

“Hey Chapman, who where you talking to on the phone earlier?”, Nicky refers to a phone call Piper made minutes before she and Nicky officially finished work as she tries to eat with her chopsticks before throwing them aside and grabbing a fork.

“You don’t know?”, Piper asks surprised, she thought Nicky would’ve known that from Piper’s first four words she said during the phone call.

“Sure I do”, Nicky smirks with a noodle hanging out of the corner of her mouth, which she swiftly slurps as Lorna points at it giggling, “but I wanna hear you say it.”

“You’re so childish.”

Lorna’s gaze switches between the smirking Nicky and the eyes-rolling Piper before she asks with her heavy accent, “what’s this about?”

“Chapman’s girlfriend”, Nicky answers enthusiastically before Piper can even think about a response.

“But you’re engaged”, Lorna states confused.

Piper just looks at her for a second. “So are you”, she eventually declares in an _as-a-matter-of-fact_ tone whereat the wired woman seems to think for a second before she shrugs, nods and drops the subject, “and she’s not my _girlfriend_ ”, Piper establishes with finality in Nicky’s direction who just mouths “denial” back at her.

 

.oOo.

 

Jersey City, New Jersey  
The Waterfront  
Day 5 07:57 PM

“I think I have to take your cell away”, Billy says in a serious tone, causing Alex to look up from the small screen.

“Why?”

“You can’t concentrate since you got that call from Piper.”

Alex rolls her eyes at that. “Sure I can.” She turns her phone off and puts it in a pocket of her leather jacket. “See?” She has no problem with concentrating on her current job, she just likes to look at the letters and numbers of her newest entry.

About an hour ago her cell suddenly ringed, an unknown number displayed on the screen. Alex frowned for a second, she wasn’t used to get unknown calls, neither on her private nor her business cell.

“Hello?”, she answered the call in a cautious tone and covered her other ear to shut down the surrounding sounds of laughing and chatter.

“Hey, it’s your stalker”, the voice greeted her and Alex sighed in relief as she identified it.

“Piper”, she smiled into the phone, “what can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if”, she could hear the blonde clear her throat on the other end, “I could get my jacket today.”

“Ah, today’s bad, sorry”, Alex said and really meant it. She would’ve loved to see Piper again, but she’s already at the bar at this moment, ready to do her job, “how about tomorrow?”

The line was silent for a moment before Piper began to stutter again, “yeah… yeah, sounds good.”

“Great. I’ll send you my address, just stop by when you’ve got time, yeah?”

“Kay.”

“See ya tomorrow, kid”, Alex said with a smile on her face as if Piper could see her and hung up. She wasted no time but instantly saved Piper’s number in her phone and texted her with the address of her apartment in New York. Since then she waited at the table for a most likely candidate to enter the bar.

“So what exactly are we looking for?”, Billy asks as he looks around and observes different students.

“Same as always”, Alex shrugs and then sees someone leaning against the counter who could be the one. The short redhead is in her early twenties and practically emits the upper middle class background. She has a tattoo on her left arm, from shoulder to hand in black and red and the forms of a mehndi.

She shakes her last thoughts of Piper off, stands up and strolls over to the redhead. She sits down on the stool next to her and orders herself a beer. “And another drink of whatever the young lady had.”

The redhead turns her head to Alex with a questioning look.

“I hope, you don’t mind”, Alex smirks at her.

She shakes her head, then tilts it. “No, not at all.”

It doesn’t take long until Alex finds out everything she has to know about the girl whose name is Megan. She travelled every year during her holidays, she practically loves to do everything what bugs her parents, which is why she also got a tattoo. She is perfect. So when she asks what Alex does for living, she responds with honesty, “I work for an international drug cartel.”

“Sounds interesting”, Megan answers without a hint of fear in her voice. She really sounds fascinated, doesn’t seem to think even a second about all the negative aspects of a drug cartel.

“It is. You get to travel a lot, the payment is splendid. Though I have to pay for the insurance myself”, Alex jokes. And with that she lures the redhead further and further into her web.

 

.oOo.

 

Bayonne, New Jersey  
Day 6 07:01 AM

The sky is painted in a deep red, reflected by the normally white clouds and blue water as the sun rises above the horizon. Some seagulls squeal as they fly their typical routes across the harbor, occasionally diving down and plunging into the waves before returning back to the surface with a struggling fish in the beak.

“For heaven’s sake, why do we have to do this in the cold?”, Frieda asks in her rough voice and rubs her gloved hands together in hopes that it’ll help her warm up. It doesn’t.

“Because”, Irma starts annoyed as she stuffs some white streaks back under her woolen cap, “the boat needs to be presentable when the buyer comes to look at it.”

“I get that, but why now? It’s freezing, couldn’t we wait until noon?”

“The few degrees would hardly make any difference”, Taslitz calls from the helm as she tries to start up the engine. The boat makes some clattering noises, but nothing more, causing the old woman to sigh heavily, “is there even any fuel left?”

Irma climbs onto the boat and steps closer to her friend. “As long as it’s not frozen. When does fuel freeze?”, she asks and pushes Taslitz aside. She turns the key herself, the boat makes its noises again.

“Not yet, not even the water is frozen”, Taslitz answers and kicks against the wood under the control panel.

“Then there is something left.”

“Well, why doesn’t this pile of shit start?”, Taslitz kicks against the wood once more and hits the control panel as Irma tries to start the engine again.

“Because it is a pile of shit”, Frieda calls from the jetty and begins to climb over the rail as well, “why anybody would want to buy a boat in the winter is beyond me anyway.”

The boat revs again and again until finally it emits a very loud but steady noise. The three women sigh with relief and Frieda and Irma start with cleaning the deck.

“Well then, let’s see if this junk still works”, Taslitz presses different buttons and actuates livers to check the boat’s functionality.

After a few minutes she hoists the anchor and furrows her brow, remembering that it used to be faster the last time she operated the boat.

“Is that Jack?”, Jimmy asks from where she’s standing on the dock and stares in the direction of the boat’s bow.

“Where?”, Frieda sighs, not really pleased to have to deal with Jimmy’s long ago deceased husband yet again. She climbs off the boat again and steps towards her scatterbrained friend.

Jimmy points at the anchor which now hangs slightly above the water surface and Frieda widens her eyes at the sight in front of her.

From the anchor hangs the dripping body of a young woman.

_to be continued..._


	7. Healing II

New York City, New York  
Queens  
Astoria  
Day 6 07:17 AM

Something nudges Piper’s left arm which dangles from the couch, her fingertips brush against the carpet. But she doesn’t react to the touch, her muscles just twitch for a moment before they relax again. She turns her head slightly and buries her face further into the pillow as she lies prone on the couch.

Another nudge lets Piper groan, her right hand grabs the blanket and she tugs it over her head, a subconscious move from when she was a kid and her mother tried to wake her up. Her feet now stick out of under the blanket, the toes twitch at the sudden coldness.

A hand closes around Piper’s shoulder and shakes it softly. She groans again, drags the blanket back down and opens one eye. It takes a few seconds until she realizes who the owner of the soft face with the bright red lips and brown eyes staring at her is. The lips move but no sound comes out of them.

“Lorna?”, Piper mumbles groggy still half asleep.

Lorna nods and moves her lips again, but still doesn’t make a sound and finally Piper grasps why. She sighs as she lifts her left arm from the ground and removes an earplug from her ear.

“Oh”, Piper can finally hear the Italian’s iconic voice, “that explains a lot.”

“You live, you learn”, Piper sighs and rubs her eyes with the heel of her left hand as she twists into a slightly more comfortable position. She learned a long time ago that when she stays at Nicky’s overnight and Lorna is there as well it’s advisable to have earplugs at hand. “What can I do for you?”

“Nicky told me to wake you up when I’m done in the bath.”

“Where is she?”

“Getting breakfast from _Dmitri’s_.”

Piper only nods and closes her eyes for a second, when she opens them again Lorna is already walking out of the den. Piper sits up and stretches her muscles, she turns her head slightly to stretch her neck in particular. It hurts as if someone had stuck thousand needles into her skin while she was asleep. She rubs the sore point and groans again as she stands up, gathers her stuff and shuffles to Nicky’s bathroom.

After a very much needed shower and change into suitable clothes she strolls out to the living room where Lorna and Nicky are already having breakfast.

“Morning, dozy devil”, Nicky greets her without looking up from the newspaper. Her hair is wild as always and suddenly Piper asks herself if she even owns a brush. She doesn’t remember ever seeing one in the bathroom, but she didn’t look for one either.

Piper just nods at her and enters the small kitchen to grab herself a cup of coffee and some of Red’s blini. With both in her hands she joins the others at the table.

“I’m surprised to see you already dressed up, let alone having brought breakfast”, Piper says to Nicky and munches the delicious blini. She knows that Nicky usually sleeps late, which is basically why she almost never shows up at work punctual.

“Well, I’d probably still be asleep”, Nicky sighs and folds the newspaper before putting it aside, “but _someone_ left her alarm on and slept soundly through it herself.”

“Oh shit”, the blini drops from Piper’s fork as she smiles apologetically at Nicky and Lorna, “I’m sorry, I totally forgot about that.”

“Well, since you didn’t even hear it you really seem to needed that sleep”, Nicky shrugs it off, “so I decided to get us some food.”

“Well, actually she had earplugs in her ears”, Lorna chimes in.

Nicky smirks amused at her, “so you learned?”

“I learned”, Piper confirms dryly and keeps munching her breakfast.

“You gonna stay here this night, too?”

“I don’t know”, Piper shrugs and considers her options. It’s either sleeping at Nicky’s again or at home where Larry is. She doesn’t necessarily want to avoid him, but she can’t stand looking into these sad eyes. And she doesn’t want to be a burden to Nicky either. “Haven’t planned anything out ‘til now. Except going to Alex after work.”

“Well, at least I know where you are if you don’t come here”, Nicky says with her usual smirk and watches her intensely. Piper doesn’t verbally react to it, she merely rolls her eyes, a gesture which seems to become a habit when she’s around Nicky, and drinks her coffee.

 

.oOo.

 

It’s late as Piper looks one last time at her phone screen to check if she’s at the right address and stands in front of the right house before tucking the cell into her trousers pocket. It wasn’t really an exhausting day since she didn’t do much at work other than re-reading reports and re-watching video footage concerning their current case. She didn’t find anything new and nobody has seen Leila since the day she vanished. It is basically like Nicky said to her two days ago, they can’t do anything without new clues.

So after the first few hours of nonproductive work, Nicky decided to do something useful with the old files she was supposed to shred. She placed the bin at the far end of the room, split the files in two equal stacks, handed one to Piper and then rolled on her chair to the wall opposite to the bin.

“You know that this isn’t legit document destruction, right?”, Piper mumbled as Nicky ripped out the first page, scrunched it up and threw it in the bin, followed by a loud whoop.

“Who the fuck cares?”, she laughed and threw the next paper ball. Eventually Piper joined in, but then a phone rang.

For a second she expected a new lead, maybe someone found Leila or the forensics got a hit. But it wasn’t her office phone which rang, it was her private cell. She fished it out of her jacket and hesitated as she saw who the caller was.

“What’s up?”, Nicky asked, but Piper ignored her, took a deep breath and accepted the call.

“Piper?”, Larry asked her after a moment of silence since she didn’t say anything as she answered the call.

“Yes?”

“Hey, I hope, um”, he stuttered and Piper could tell that he didn’t really want to make this call. She couldn’t blame him, especially since she didn’t want to take it either, “I don’t disrupt you or anything, do I?”

“No, no you don’t”, she sighed, “work’s pretty slow right now.”

Nicky chuckled at that and threw the next paper ball, but missed the bin.

“Great, um, listen. I just wanted to tell you that I’m going out of town for the next few days.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, getting the head free”, he clears his throat and continues in smaller voice, “giving you space.”

They continued the talk for a few seconds and bidding each other goodbye was never that awkward before. No _I love you_ , no _see you tonight_.

“Looks like I don’t need your couch today”, she mumbled to Nicky and carried on with “Larry’s out of town the next week” as she saw her questioning look.

“Well, if you need the company you can come over anyway”, Nicky shrugged and then groaned because Piper scored three times in a row.

 _Company is always good_ , Piper thinks, but it isn’t Nicky’s apartment complex in Queens she steps in now. She wouldn’t have to check that address anyway since she’s been there countless times. This building is classier, from the outside and the inside. It even has a concierge holding the door for Piper with a kind smile and nod.

As she stands before the right door, she hesitates and looks down at herself for a moment. She didn’t change, she still wears one of her pantsuits she always wears for work. It wouldn’t have made much sense to drive to Brooklyn, change and then drive back to Manhattan.

Besides all she wants is to get her jacket, right? Nothing more. _There is no need to dress up for that_ , she tells herself and knocks on the wooden door.

It doesn’t take long until the door opens and Alex greets her with a kind smile, “hey there, Pipes.” The brunette steps aside and opens the door wider to let her in.

“Hi”, Piper breaths, reluctantly steps into the apartment and passes Alex who closes the door behind.

“Make yourself comfortable”, Alex says and guides Piper further in while taking the jacket off her and hanging it on the coatrack, “you want something to drink?”, she asks and heads to the kitchen, “I just opened a bottle of wine.”

 _No_ , Piper thinks in her clouded mind, _I just want my jacket_. She can actually see it hanging over the back of one of the chairs in the next room. “Sounds good”, she says instead and steps into the kitchen as well.

“Shall I give you a tour?”, Alex asks as she hands Piper one glass filled with red wine. First she leads her into the living room as big as Piper’s very first own apartment.

Her eyes instantly fix on the bookshelves. They’re huge, wide and ranges from the floor to the ceiling, filled with dozens and dozens of books. “You weren’t kidding when you said you like books”, Piper says with a smile on her face and sips her wine.

“I never kid when it comes to books.”

She steps closer to the shelf, brushes her fingers across a few spines and reads the names of some of the authors: Christopher Paolini, Ian McEwan, Erik Larson, O. Henry. A smile and small chuckle escape her spotting one book by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

She furrows her brow as she reads the title _Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis_ by Christian Parenti. She carefully takes it from the shelf and reads the blurb then shakes her head and places it back where it belongs.

“Enjoying yourself?”, Alex whispers from behind in her ear.

“Yeah”, Piper answers uneasily as she tries to ignore the chills the other woman gives her as her warm breath tickles her sensitive skin and drinks, almost gulps, more of the wine.

“Good”, Alex sultry voice is barely audible and Piper twitches slightly as she feels fingers touching her neck, brushing away some hair and exposing her small tattoo she always hides with her hair. When she feels the soft lips at her skin, she closes her eyes.

She doesn’t move, doesn’t breath, she only thinks, her brain is running on overdrive. “Alex”, she eventually says weakly, “I don’t think this is a good idea.” She knows she wants this as she leans automatically into the touch. She wants this so bad, but she has to resist. _Just get your jacket, and go_ , she says to herself, but doesn’t move a muscle.

“Stop thinking, Pipes”, Alex says in between, “do you _want_ me to stop?”

“Yes”, Piper responds too fast and fails to even convince herself.

“Try that again”, Alex embraces Piper, pulls her body closer to her and leans with her chin on her shoulder, “what do you want?” Her hands sneak under the blonde’s blouse again and caress the abdomen. “What do you _really_ want”, she questions as Piper stays silent.

Piper takes a deep breath and opens her eyes again, she turns around in Alex’s arms, causing the brunette to stop her actions and instead taking one of her hands out of the blouse to take Piper’s empty glass out of her hand and placing it on the table behind her with her dark eyes fixed on Piper’s.

Piper planned to push her away, but in the same moment she sees the green eyes filled with lust her mind is empty again, her plan never existed, and nothing but desire is left.

Alex raises an eyebrow and tilts her head slightly, “what do you want, Piper?”, she asks again, her voice is still faint and Piper doesn’t even think about it as she grabs Alex’s neck and pulls her lips closer to her own until they clash in a passionate kiss.

“You”, Piper whispers as she breaks away from the kiss for the tiniest second before claiming the brunette’s lips again.

 

.oOo.

 

This one word is all the confirmation Alex needs and all the permission she asks for. She opens Piper’s blazer and then slips it from her body, letting the garment drop to the floor. She presses her body against Piper until the blonde stumbles back into the shelf, then leaves Piper’s mouth and travels down her neck, following the pulse.

She moves her hands to the front of Piper’s blouse and slowly unbuttons it, too slow obviously because Piper moves her own hands down from Alex’s head to help undo the buttons and take the blouse off.

For a moment Alex simply looks at the thin blonde who now stands only inches away from her wearing a black lace bra with red rims.

And then she just lifts her up, Piper yelps at the sudden move but Alex immediately shuts her up with another passionate kiss. She presses one hand against her back and the other under on thigh to steady the blonde who she wraps her legs around Alex’s waist end her arms around her neck.

They continue kissing as Alex balances them towards her bedroom. Piper kicks of her shoes on the way before Alex carefully lays her down on the soft mattress and climbs on top of her straddling her waist.

She lifts her own grey V-neck tee over her head and throws it to the side before leaning down to place more kisses on Piper’s skin. She unhooks the bra and kisses down the neck over the collarbone to her left breast, slightly pulls at the nipple with her teeth while stroking the other, causing Piper to moan as she runs her hands through Alex’s hair and tries to pull her impossible close.

Alex moves further down, leaving a trail of wet spots on the skin until she stops right above the waistband. With her hands she trails Piper’s body down from her breasts to her hips, her fingers feathery touching the skin, creating a path of goosebumps.

She opens the button and tugs at the cloth, pulling the pants down the full length and discarding them, directly followed by the panties. But instead of diving into action, she takes the naked blonde below her into full view, admiring every inch of skin.

“Alex?”, Piper whispers in a mixture of need and worry.

Alex shakes her head smiling. She crawls back up Piper’s body, brushes a blonde streak out of her face and kisses her softly. She leans her forehead against the blonde’s and caresses her cheek. “You’re beautiful”, she whispers before kissing her again.

 

.oOo.

 

An alien sound echoes through the room, Alex can’t place it in her half-sleep state, but she can feel how the warm body in her arms shifts as the sound doesn’t stop.

“No”, she mumbles with a weak voice and way less convincing than she planned. She tightens her hold on Piper and presses herself closer to the naked skin.

“It’s my phone”, Piper reasons groggy realizing that Alex’s hold on her is too strong for her to move out of it.

Alex doesn’t let go but instead kisses the blonde’s shoulder softly with her eyes still closed. “Whoever that is isn’t important.” She doesn’t want the blonde to leave her embrace.  She doesn’t want to lose the warmth she radiates and doesn’t want to miss the scent of her hair she inhales while breathing softly against her neck. Eventually the ringing stops and Piper relaxes in her arms. “Good girl”, she breaths and Piper chuckles, intertwine her fingers with Alex’s.

They almost fall asleep again entwined in each other, but not even five minutes later the phone rings once more. Alex groans annoyed, more so when Piper shifts again. Though this time she lets her go since when somebody tries to call you twice in this short time it really has to be important.

Alex opens her eyes and sees how the blonde bends over the rim of the bed and searches for the source of this annoying noise. It’s still dark outside, barely 6 AM, as Alex turns to look at her clock.

Piper bends back up, with her mobile in her hand, the bright screen blinds Alex for a second, but she thinks she can identify the picture of Piper’s wild-haired friend from the bar on it.

Alex immediately flings one arm around Piper’s waist again, pulls her closer to her own body again and buries her face in her neck after moving the blonde hair out of the way as Piper accepts the call. She places some soft kisses at the place on the neck where she remembers the small fish is tattooed into the skin. “The fuck you want”, Piper murmurs dozy though her tone is anything but questioning and Alex chuckles quietly at the rude greeting.

“A beautiful morning to you, too, sunshine”, she can hear Nicky rumble loudly through the speaker.

“Jeez, indoor voice. I’m still asleep here”, Piper complains into the phone. Alex can hear Nicky talk more quietly and hence doesn’t understand her exact words anymore. “It’s my day off, whatever he wants can wait”, Piper complains and then goes silent again before snapping a “fuck you” into the phone whereat Alex hears Nicky laugh at her.

“So, what did he want?”, Piper sighs and then suddenly tenses in Alex’s arms. “What?”, she breaks away from Alex’s embrace, much to her displeasure, and sits up. The blanket slips down her body and exposes her bare back to Alex who reaches out for it and draws small soothing patterns on the skin with her fingers. “Fuck”, Piper breathes and her body slumps down. She rubs her forehead, “I’m on my way.”

The blonde hangs up and sighs as she turns to look at Alex with a sad smile on her face. “I guess you don’t stay for breakfast?”, Alex asks her slightly dejected. She isn’t used to this, usually she is the one who leaves after the sex, thinking and often even saying out loud “no strings attached.” But this feels different. She can’t say how it feels, what it is and what it means, but seeing the blonde leave makes her uncomfortable to say the least.

“No, sorry”, Piper responds, stands up and collects her scattered clothes.

“Whatever that was must be quite important”, Alex mumbles as she observes Piper getting dressed. This call was obviously work related, since Piper talked about her day off. That means that Nicky is presumably not only her friend but also her colleague and that Piper’s job is more than a mere office job. After all for what boring office job would you be called in at 6 AM at your day off?

“Yeah”, Piper mutters absently while sliding into her pants, “I’ll tell you about it one other time”, and Alex can hear a faint distress in the blonde’s voice, she can’t tell the cause for it though.

“No rush”, she reassures her although she’s definitely very interested now. Then she slightly surprises herself by asking, “you come by after work?”

Piper stops in her moves for a second and faces Alex with a furrowed brow, apparently as surprised by the question as Alex herself. “I didn’t figure you for the clingy type”, she states in an amused voice.

“I’m not clingy, I just wanna finish what I started”, Alex purrs and smirks as Piper averts her gaze with a small blush creeping up her cheeks.

The blonde steps closer to the bed, with only her bra covering her upper body since her blouse still lies in front of one of the bookshelves in the living room and bends down to give Alex a soft kiss. “I’ll give you a call”, she murmurs against her lips and then is just gone.

Alex tries to fall asleep again while inhaling the scent Piper left on her pillow, but after half an hour of tossing and turning around, she stands up, takes a shower and makes her way into the living room, smirking wide as she sees that the blonde’s jacket on the chair was never moved even an inch.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Forensic Pathology  
Day 7 07:09 AM

This is a sight Piper will never get used to. Let alone the smell. She wrinkles her nose as she steps closer to the autopsy table on which the body lies yet covered with a white cloth while putting gloves on.

She tugs at the fabric and exposes the head. The skin is dark and swollen, a gunshot wound on the forehead as well as some bruises and cuts. Water and death changed the look, but Piper is sure that this is the same girl from the pictures and videos she saw.

Leila Smith.

“I guess the cause of death is no real mystery here”, she mumbles half sure half asking. She could’ve been shot post mortem after all.

“No”, Flores agrees from behind and steps closer to Piper, she walks around the table and leans on it with her arms, careful of not to touch the body. Her dark hair is even wilder than Nicky’s and she has dark circles under her eyes.

“And the bruises?”, Piper asks and points at the bruises around the shot wound and the rest of the disfigured face.

“Probably post mortem”, the pathologist responds in her thick Spanish accent and tugs the cloth further down and from the other side up so that only the woman’s lower abdomen and thighs are covered now. She points to the toes, knees and knuckles, “you find them here as well. A drowned usually brushes against the ground when it floats in a river. Hence the bruises.”

Piper nods curtly and looks at the whole body. There are more bruises, cuts and wounds at the arms and the abdominal region. She moves her hands to one of the arms. “May I?” The pathologist shrugs and nods confirming and Piper lifts the limb to examine the forearm. “What’s with these cuts?”

“Hard to tell, I don’t think they’re post mortem though. The positions could imply a defensive stance. Either she was attacked multiple times with a very sharp blade or maybe fell on something.”

Piper thinks for a second before the picture of Leila’s apartment flashes back into her mind. “Like a glass table?”

“Quite possible”, Flores tilts her head, “you know something that I don’t?”

“In her apartment were tracks of a fight. Among others a broken glass table.”

“Then it was probably the splinter of glass. She got pushed, tried to save her fall and hit the table. The glass broke and cut her arms and face.”

Piper slowly drops the arm again and focuses on the abdomen. She points at the raw wounds in the skin and flesh. “What’s with these? They’re definitely not gun or knife wounds.”

“She got flushed against the anchor and the metal tore into her flesh, especially after it got hoisted.” A cold shiver runs down Piper’s spine at the picture of Leila’s body being ripped open by the anchor. “No te preocupes”, the pathologist tells her as she sees her uneasiness, “she was dead when that happened, poor thing didn’t feel anything of it.”

“Still…”

“She probably died pretty fast, no long suffering, at least not physical. There are worse deaths”, she shrugs.

After a few minutes the doors to the pathology burst open and Nicky steps in, evidently slightly shocked to see Piper already standing there. “Since when are you here?”

“Dunno, seven?”

Nicky furrows her brow and then smirks knowing exactly that Piper wouldn’t have made it from her house in Brooklyn to the pathology in such a short time directly after waking up, “you weren’t at home, right?”

“Nicky, please”, Piper sighs and wields her hands in the direction of the corpse, “we have slightly more important issues at hand right now.”

“Sure, but I’ll take you up on that later.” Nicky steps closer to the table and eyes Leila as well, “damn.” She tilts her head and points to the gaping wound on the forehead, “deadly shot?”

“Yes”, the pathologist chimes in.

“Then she wasn’t killed in the apartment, there was by far not enough blood.”

Piper nods and would’ve loved to smack herself for not having thought of that before, “she was attacked, abducted and then killed with a single shot.”

“Sounds pretty much like execution if you ask me.”

“Makes sense, like you already said, someone must’ve been pissed at her for losing the drugs.”

“But why not torture her?”

“Too much evidence”, Piper says and then thinks about the whole case. Twenty pounds of heroin is a huge amount of drugs and would’ve been very lucrative, yet there wasn’t any harm on the girl except for the bruises she got as she tried to defend herself. A simple single shot, clean and fast. “This wasn’t about rage or revenge. This was business.”

“Drug cartel”, Nicky agrees with Piper’s non-verbal expressed assumption, “a bigger one.”

“Who is currently on our kingpin list?”

“You ask questions, blondie”, Nicky scoffs and shakes her head.

“Well, let’s find out.”

_to be continued..._


	8. Healing III

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 7 08:12 AM

They enter the building through the front door, Piper has Flores’s provisional report tucked under her arm, ready to read it and search for any clues.

But they don’t go to their office, instead they head straight to the cafeteria to grab a decent cup of coffee and some breakfast they both didn’t had the pleasure to have yet.

“You’re early, girls”, Mendoza greets them and starts to fill two cups with the hot, black liquor as soon as she sees them enter through the door from behind the counter.

“I’d still be asleep if that moron wouldn’t have decided to get herself killed”, Nicky grumbles and runs a hand through her very messy hair, “or at least waited with being found ‘til we’re on the clock.”

“I doubt it was her decision”, Piper in an _I-feel-sorry-for-her_ tone but inwardly agrees with her friend. She would love nothing more than to crawl back in bed and snuggle up to the warm body of Alex. “You have sandwiches ready?”, she asks Mendoza to chase her thoughts of Alex off, she needs to stay focused after all, and with a hungry smile takes the plate with two sandwiches on it the chef hands her.

Nicky grabs the two cups of coffee and the two plop down at the next best table. With one sandwich in her right and the folder in her left hand Piper begins to skim the report, most of it is nothing new, just the detailed written down version of what Flores already told her earlier.

As she closes the folder again and tosses it on the table Nicky takes the chance to pump her further. “So, you stayed at Vause’s?”

Piper sighs and drops her head for a moment. So much for trying to not to think about Alex.

“You did the horizontal tango?”, Nicky asks and wiggles her eyebrows as she realizes that Piper won’t answer the previous question.

“Man, you’re really subtle”, Piper drawls sarcastically and rolls her eyes. She takes her coffee and gulps it down. It is the first and very much needed coffee today and she can’t wait for the caffeine to kick-start her system.

“That I am”, she nods in agreement and then illustrates her following words with hand gestures, “I could always ask if you put two fingers inside of her and licked her pussy.”

“God, Nicky!”, Piper squeaks and buries her face in her hands as she notices that some others of the staff turn in her direction at her cry.

“I hope you screamed another name last night”, the crazy-haired woman states in mock-concern with one of her biggest smirks, “I’d be flattered and all, but I really don’t want Vause to have a wrong impression of us.”

The blonde grunts and drops her head on the table for a second. When she hears Nicky’s laughter, she looks up again and sighs. “Since when is my sex-life so interesting to you?”

“Since it involves a tall brunette rather than your dorky fiancé.”

“You’re unbelievable”, Piper breaths and shakes her head again.

“So, did you?”

“Yes”, Piper huffs, crosses her arms and leans back in her chair.

Nicky chuckles with a wide grin and leans on her elbows. “Chapman the lesbian.”

“I’m not gay”, Piper says straight away.

“Sure, whatever”, Nicky shrugs, “call yourself what ya want, not-lesbian. But if you like pussy you like pussy. ‘S all I’m sayin’.”

“Can we not talk about vaginas?”, Piper sighs and throws a slightly annoyed look at her colleague.

“How about pillow-y tits then?”, Nicky asks but soon after throws her hands up in surrender because Piper’s face gets darker, “okay, okay. What do you want to talk about, blondie?”

“Our current case would be a welcome change”, she says and points to the folder next to the empty plate on the table.

“Not nearly as interesting”, Nicky complains but takes the report to skim it as well anyway.

Piper shrugs and eats the rest of her sandwich. “More important, though”, she declares mumbling with a full mouth and brushes the crumbs off her hands and clothing.

“Not much in here.”

“Nichols, Chapman!”, someone suddenly hollers from the entrance and causes several heads, not only the ones of the called, in the cafeteria to turn around. An irritated Caputo stands on the doorstep, looking intently at his two agents, “my office, now.”

“What? You can’t possibly expect a new report from us already”, Nicky complains and then leans closer to Piper whispering so that Caputo won’t hear her words, “did we fuck something up?”

“Well, _I_ sure as hell didn’t”, Piper mumbles back, her tone signals that it wouldn’t surprise her if Nicky did something to anger their chief.

“This is not a briefing”, Caputo answers from the door, not even moving an inch. “And you didn’t do anything this time, Nichols”, he adds exactly knowing what Nicky thinks whereat she sighs deeply in relief.

Piper furrows her brow. “Then what is this about?”

“I have some homicide detectives trying to crawl up my ass and want to share my delight with you”, he elaborates and Piper knows that this conversation will be anything but pleasure. When some cops come here to kiss asses they usually want to talk about something that will annoy the hell out of everybody else. “Now move it!”

 

.oOo.

 

Piper and Nicky enter Caputo’s office right behind their chief. In front of the desk filled with plants sit a man and woman who turn their heads around and stand up as soon as Caputo clears his throat.

The man with the grey hair and a big belly appears to be in his fifties, he has a pair of glasses on the tip of his nose and his face is the definition of boredom.

The very young woman has long black hair and judged by her facial features Asian roots. Unlike the man she has an overall friendly, sunny and most of all _excited-to-be-here_ appearance.

“Detectives, this are the agents in charge”, the chief gestures towards his subordinates, “Agent Chapman, Agent Nichols.”

The man frowns deeply as he shakes hands with Piper and Nicky. “You let two _women_ handle a case like _this_?”, he asks and seems deeply offended by that. Piper and Nicky exchange a look of disbelief but don’t say anything as they all sit down.

“Chapman, Nichols, this are detectives Healy and Soso, they’re investigating in the case of Leila Smith’s death”, the chief continues, obviously trying to act as if he didn’t hear the detective’s comment.

“Whoa, wait, what?”, Nicky interrupts instantly, “Smith is our case.”

“Listen, young lady, Miss Smith’s death might be part of your case, but as investigators of the DEA you’re in no position to investigate her death”, Healy replies in a calm voice, he sounds tired, not just of this conversation but as if he’s just tired of life in general.

“Call me young lady one more time, grandpa!”, Nicky snarls back at him and shoves a threatening finger into his face. Piper grabs her by the arm and forces her to lean back into her chair.

“As much as this may be true”, Piper now begins, her eyes still fixed on Nicky for a moment before she faces the older man completely, “Miss Smith is directly related to our case and therefor our issue to handle.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I get that you want to investigate her death, but her death is part of _our_ case. It is not your case”, Piper tilts her head and smirks, “for my sake you can look into her death all you want, but know that _we_ are in charge of this investigation.”

Healy laughs a dry laugh, shakes his head and smiles in amusement. “And you think you can do that?”

“Well I sure can”, Piper huffs and leans forward, staring intensely at the detective and crossing her arms, “if I concentrate _extra_ hard with my lady brain.”

Next to Piper Nicky clasps her hands over her mouth to suppress a laugher. The younger detective Soso giggles as well until Healy whose smile instantly vanished glares at her.

Caputo just rolls his eyes, “thank you, Chapman.”

“My pleasure. Now, what did you call us up here for, boss?”

“Actually for exactly that matter. The question of _who is in charge here_ ”, Caputo sighs and then opens one of his drawers. He searches for something in there and after a few seconds pulls out a file and tosses it on his desk in front of the detectives. “I have to agree with my agents, Mister Healy. Miss Smith was murdered in a drug-related crime, her death is part of our investigation. I guess your chief thinks the same or I’d be talking to _him_ instead of _you_. However, in order to lighten our workload I’d be happy if you’d join us on the murder.”

“So we what? Act as your minions?”

“You investigate in the poor woman’s death and hand us over all information you get.”

“I hate three letter agencies”, Healy mutters and takes the file which lists all the current information Piper and Nicky gathered about Leila Smith.

“We all do that”, Caputo agrees, “and now I’ll let you handle your very first meeting to discuss your position as _partners_.” Caputo leads the four of them into a conference room and then leaves, but not without telling Piper and Nicky to play nice.

 

.oOo.

 

Newark, New Jersey  
Springfield/Belmont  
Day 7 01:32 PM

“Now what is so important that I have to show up here on my vacation?”, Alex grumbles as she enters the same warehouse she was days ago only to get slapped by Kubra. She got a call from Fahri over an hour ago, he said to meet with the rest immediately, he sounded stressed, almost panicked.

And Alex knew that something bad must have happened, Fahri is a calm man, almost as calm as Kubra but without the coldness.

“You are not on vacation, Alex”, Fahri responds and steps aside to let her into the house. He doesn’t look like he sounded earlier, he has his calm face set up, but he’s missing the faint smile he often wears.

Alex follows him directly down to the basement. “Kubra told me to consider it as such, so I do.” Fahri doesn’t say anything to that but simply punches in the code and opens the door.

Suddenly Alex can hear someone, probably Kubra, yell in a mixture of English and Turkish. His voice is full of rage, nothing of his calm and coldness left. A major fuck up must have happened.

They go further into the basement and can see Kubra ramp at two other men, Alex remembers them to be the two other guys at the docks when Leila was executed. The two are silent as they sit at the table, their eyes averted from Kubra’s, directed to the floor and Alex can see the fear in them.

The fourth man in the room is Nasir. He stands next to his boss still and calm as always, the faithful housekeeper. When he notices Alex and Fahri he nudges Kubra who gets silent and turns towards them.

“Ah”, he spits out, “the masters of incompetence are finally assembled.”

“Incompetence?”, Alex sucks her teeth offended by the accusation, “I am far from incompetent.”

“Do you like symmetry, Alex?”, Kubra asks her with deep anger in her voice, the tone alone lets Alex know to better shut the fuck up. She wouldn’t know what to answer anyway since she has no idea what he’s talking about. “Because we can always add another scar on that pretty face of yours.” He takes a step back and gestures towards the table. “Go, Alex, sit down and join your colleagues.”

Alex furrows her brow, but does as told. She knows not to anger Kubra further when he’s in this state. Now a wrong word could easily get her shot a bullet right through her head despite her position and value in this organization.

“I already told these two… _Salaks_ … what happened and how I feel about it”, he begins, his voice calm again. He sits down on the opposite side of the table and stares directly into Alex’s eyes. A cold shiver runs down her spine, she was rarely the target of his wrath and it wasn’t even pleasant to be in the same room as him when he’s pissed at someone else. “I got a call today. Yesterday morning the police pulled a body out of  Upper Bay.” Alex tenses immediately. He doesn’t even have to tell more, she already knows what that means, but of course he continues anyway, “It didn’t even take them twenty-four hours to identify the body as Leila Smith. I wouldn’t even care if it were just the morons of NYPD or NJSP, but I didn’t get the call from one of our moles in the police departments”, he makes a brief pause, builds up tension, makes Alex shift uncomfortable in her seat, “they instantly called the DEA.”

Alex closes her eyes. That is not good. They found the drugs, they tracked them to Leila and now that she’s not vanished but dead there’s no doubt for them that someone bigger is behind this.

“So, you see my slight discomfort right now?”

She opens her eyes again, Kubra is still looking at her, expecting an answer. She nods and sighs a faint “yes.”

“Unfortunately the mole also told me, that the agents assigned to the case are not, under any circumstances bribable. That raises the question: What do we do?”

Alex thinks for a second, Kubra’s cartel is by far not the only cartel to act around here, and as long as there is no proof on Leila’s body they will have a hard job to relate her death _or_ the drugs to them. “Does our mole have insights into the progress of the case?”

“Enough to keep us up to date about their threat to us.”

“Then I suggest we stay low and do nothing. Leila is not the first body to reappear and that bag was not the first to get lost. As long as nothing else goes wrong the next few weeks we should be safe. If something _does_ happen we can still cut all ties around here and go into hiding.”

“That is risky”, Kubra says but smiles with a nod, “but our most likely best choice.” He seems to have thought of exactly the same and just wanted to know if Alex can come up with something. “I know why I only hit you when I should’ve done so much more.”

Alex gulps visibly and mumbles a questionable “thanks” back at the drug lord. If her opinion is all she got called up here for, she’s definitely relieved. Also pissed because she looked forward to enjoy a cozy day with a book in her hand and her body on the couch waiting for Piper to call her, but mostly relieved.

“As for you two”, Kubra turns his face towards the other men who never even once looked up from the floor during the conversation. His voice is soaked in anger again, “when I told you to clean up I meant that the body is _not_ to be found.” He stands up again and gives Alex a curt nod to dismiss her before he continues. “I really hate sloppy work.”

Alex stands up and walks around the table to join Nasir and Fahri. Right now this side of the room seems to be the safest place by far.

“I should kill you right here and now and _hope_ that the others will do a better job dispersing your bodies than you two did.” He is silent for a moment, lets the two tremble with fear of uncertainness. “Sadly… I need you.” Relief washes over the men and Kubra sighs, walks over to one shelf and takes a silver suitcase out of it. Alex remembers the suitcase, it’s the same suitcase he had at the docks, the one he pulled the gun out of. “Or at least _one_ of you.”

The men tense again and for the first time look up, they seem to remember the suitcase as well, because their eyes widen as they see it.

“Nasir?”, he hands the suitcase over to him and walks over to the door, “make a decision.” Then he orders Alex and Fahri to follow him out and closes the door behind them.

Alex never hears the pleas, the screams or the single shot roaring through the basement.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 7 03:17 PM

As Piper enters her own office she feels the urgent need to smack her head against a brick wall again and again and again. She knows the two detectives for roughly seven hours, but it didn’t even take her half of that to decide that she can’t stand either one of them.

Healy is uncooperative to say the least. She can’t even say if it bugs him more that he is not in charge of this investigation or that he has to follow a woman’s orders.

When she asked him to look up similar murder cases in the proximity of New York City and Jersey City, regardless of the cases being solved or not, he looked back at her as if she had two heads.

“This isn’t a serial murder”, he simply said.

“Can’t say that for sure”, Piper mumbled, “this was done by a drug cartel. Drug cartels don’t get big without a trail of dead bodies.” After a few minutes of silence it was clear that Healy wouldn’t go digging up other crimes and Piper sighed heavily, dropping the current file she read. “Look, I know that you don’t want this to be a serial murder. And I also know why.” The older detective craned a doubtful eyebrow. “Because as soon as it’s clear that this is a serial murder, the FBI will knock at these doors and butt into the case as well.”

Healy’s face got even grimmer and Piper knew she hit a nerve. The FBI and every other so called three letter agency were always and will always be a sore point for mere police officers and detectives.

“We have two things in common, detective. We are all payed by Uncle Sam and we all hate three letter agencies. I hate the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and all the others as much as you hate them and us, just for different reasons. And do you know why that is?” Healy didn’t answer and Piper’s voice got smug, “because we have power, detective. We share a place at the top of the food chain, betting about who wins the next pissing contest while you down there have to feed on our leftovers, all the small cases we don’t care about.” Piper shook her head and took the file she skimmed again, only talking to Healy negligibly now, “I’m sorry about the broken ego you now have because you have to take orders from a _woman_ who has less years of service than you do, but it’ll be a very cold day in hell when I deeply care about that.” She sighed and looked up at the detective again, her voice suddenly had a very fretted undertone, “so, would you get the fucking files now?”

Healy didn’t say anything more, he just stared at her and for a moment Piper thought he might hit her, but then he stood up and left the room.

“Man, Chapman, have I ever told you how much I love it when your temper kicks in?”, Nicky said with a wide grin from her right. Piper didn’t answer, but just smiled at her before turning her attention back to her former task.

“That was so cool”, the young Asian woman suddenly said. She didn’t talk much until now because every time she opened her mouth Healy shushed her instantly. But now that the old man was gone nobody was here to tell her to keep her mouth shut, “just like in the movies, when the cops are arguing about jurisdiction and throw threats and laws at each other’s heads.”

From that moment on she didn’t really stop talking. After a while Nicky left the room as well to search for the current known drug cartels and left Piper alone with the babbling Soso. _At least the name seems to fit_.

“Thanks for the backup”, Piper mutters as she closes the office door behind her and finds Nicky in her usual pose with her legs propped up on the desk.

“You need to know when to bail, blondie”, her colleague laughs tiredly, “but I thought about it, maybe she shuts up if we just sit on her face next time.”

“Can’t hurt to give it a try”, Piper agrees and places the two boxes she was holding on the floor before she plops down on her own chair. She frowns as she sees another box on her desk. “What’s this?”, she asks Nicky as she lifts the lid. The box is full with thick files.

“Files ‘bout all the drug cartels known to be currently active.”

Piper sighs heavily, _great, more homework_. She closes the box again and drops it on top of the others.

“What’s with yours?”, Nicky asks after she turned around and saw the boxes Piper brought in.

“That are the files that sad excuse for a detective brought me.”

“Gonna be a long day, huh?”

Piper shakes her head and sighs, “more like long week. I’m not going to stay that long today, though. I’ll just take some of them home with me.” She takes her cellphone out of her pocket and dials the number of Alex, she promised to call her before she left after all and since she decided to take her much needed break now, it’s the only time to make the call until she can finally go home again.

“Hello?”, she hears Alex greet her through the phone. With that one word Piper can sense that something isn’t alright with her, she seems upset.

“It’s your belated wake-up call, Miss Vause”, Piper answers carefully and Nicky’s head jerks up with a wide smirk when she hears the name at what Piper just rolls her eyes and turns away from her colleague.

“Oh, hey, Pipes”, Alex sputters and clears her throat, “gimme a sec.” She mumbles something Piper can’t understand, it’s swiftly spoken and clearly not directed to her. After a moment of silence, Alex’s voice reappears in full volume and usual voice, “hi, kid.”

“Hi”, Piper smiles into the phone, “sorry I didn’t call earlier, it’s quite messy around here.”

“Yeah”, Alex huffs, “I can relate to that.”

“Listen, Al”, Piper sighs and gets straight to the point, “I don’t think I can come by today. I’m not even remotely done here.”

“You still don’t wanna get your jacket then?”, Alex asks and Piper can hear in the voice that she’s smirking. For a moment she wonders what jacket the brunette is talking about, but then it dawns to her. She palms her face and groans.

“I left it at your place, didn’t I?”

“That you did. But I could also bring it over, you now? If you can’t come here.”

Piper hesitates for a second. It’s not that she doesn’t want to see Alex again, she wants nothing more than that, but does she really want to have Alex at her home where she lives with her technically fiancé? “You sure you wanna go all the way just for my jacket?”

“For the jacket? Hell, no. But for you? Sure”, Alex answers, her voice huskier than usual, causing Piper to shiver for a moment. She’s just about to answer but then hears someone talking on the other line to the brunette. Alex sighs deeply. “I’m coming”, she mumbles to whoever she’s talking to and then directs back towards Piper, “sorry, kid, I gotta go. Just send me your address and the time and I’ll be there, alright?”

“Alright”, Piper sighs defeated but smiles anyway. They hang up and she sends a message with her address and the time she expects to be home.

“So, you not-lesbians going into round two tonight?”, Nicky smirks at her and wriggles her eyebrows again. Piper decides to play along this time with a simple wink towards her friend before she dives into work again.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 7 08:32 PM

It’s getting warmer. Well, technically it’s still freaking cold, but slowly the degrees are climbing up to the normal temperatures of February. So it is getting warmer.

But yeah, it’s still freaking cold, especially if you can’t stand the cold. Alex doesn’t necessarily hate the cold, but she definitely likes the warmth more. Tropical Islands, sunny beaches, these are more her liking.

Yet she stands outside, rubbing her gloved palms together and watches the tiny clouds she breaths in the dark air. She is already considering getting back into her car, if only to sit in a heated place, when she sees the blonde woman she’s waiting for finally walking towards her from the subway station.

Piper has stacked two file boxes on her arms and is barely able to peek over them to see where she walks, but her tired eyes wrinkle slightly as she notices Alex standing there, so the brunette guesses that she’s smiling. “Hi, sorry I’m late.”

“No problem. Can I help you?”, Alex offers her as the blonde reaches her at the door and takes the surprisingly heavy boxes from her.

“Thanks, these things were killing me.”

“I can imagine”, Alex mumbles as she holds onto the boxes while Piper fishes out her keys for the house, “what’s in there? Rocks? Metal? Dead rhinoceroses?”

“Usually boxes like these are filled with paper, Al”, Piper comments bugged. For a moment Alex is taken aback by the sudden annoyance in the blonde’s voice, which Piper must have sensed. Slumping her shoulders she sighs heavily when the door opens and runs a hand through her hair. “Sorry… It was a shitty day”, she says in a small voice with an apologetic smile and takes the two boxes back.

Alex remembers the first conversation she had with the woman at the bar, when she saw her gulping the drink in one down, saying that it’s never too cold for tequila but basically meaning that she needed the alcohol. She asked her if she had a tough day back then, but dropped the question as soon as it was fired back at her because of the split lip. Unwittingly she raises a hand to her mouth and brushes across the lip. The split healed pretty fast, only the tiniest scar is visible and for a second her mind wanders back to Kubra’s threat earlier, but she shakes that unpleasant thought away. “You seem to have a lot of those”, she finally concludes and follows Piper into her house.

“You have no idea.”

“So”, Alex begins as her gaze follows Piper who discards the two boxes on the stairs and then takes off her jacket, “does working early _and_ late at your day off happen often?”

Piper takes a sharp breath and then takes the jacket from Alex’s arm, her own jacket Alex brought with her. “Yeah”, Piper mumbles eventually and Alex knows that she hit a nerve with that question, “but I don’t wanna talk about anything of that right know. I’d rather just forget that I even have that job for a moment.”

“Well”, Alex breaths husky and leans towards the blonde, “I would love to help you with that”, she would also like to ask Piper some questions, but she is more than willing to wait with those if Piper feels uncomfortable. Especially if there’s something in for her as well. “I know a damn well way to do so.”

“I bet”, Piper whispers and shudders visibly, her eyes locked with Alex’s, but then she averts her gaze, flees from the current position and picks up the boxes, playing coy again, “I’ll put these away, be right back, make yourself comfortable.”

Alex smirks, takes off her own jacket and kicks off her shoes. She steps into the living room and looks around. There are a lot of books and pictures along the shelves. She steps closer to them to look at them. On most of them she can see Piper together with a man with dark curly hair, about her height and, various from picture to picture, either a dorky or kind smile. That must be her mysterious fiancé.

On most of the other pictures Piper is, either alone or together with her fiancé, with a bulky, bearded blonde man. The man looks kind of like Piper, they have the same blue eyes and the same bright smile.

“That’s my brother”, Piper tells her from behind and Alex flinches startled, she didn’t notice that the blonde snuck up behind her, “my younger brother anyway, Cal.”

“So you have two brothers?”, Alex asks with a slight smile without turning away from the photo. Judging by the millisecond of a moment this photo caught the two seem to have a very tight bond.

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen Danny in ages”, she shrugs and Alex briefly wonders why. She doesn’t sound very sad about it, just said it like any other fact of life, like that the sky is blue or the grass is green. “Do you have siblings?”, Piper asks her and just then Alex turns around and looks into a smiling face.

“No, it was always just my mother and me.”

“She must be an awesome woman then”, Piper says.

Alex would instantly agree, but cranes an eyebrow, “why that?”

Piper leans forwards and Alex can feel her breath tickle against her lips as she speaks, “because she raised an awesome woman all by herself.”

“She was”, Alex mumbles with a sad smile and Piper suddenly departs again, her smile gone, her eyes sad. _Great way to kill the mood_ , Alex inwardly scolds herself as she realizes the tense she used.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, she died years ago”, Alex sighs if just to drop the topic and follows Piper who steps into the kitchen and turns on the coffee machine, “what about your mother? Is she as mamazing as her daughter?”

“Mamazing?”, Piper chuckles with a slight blush but then scoffs and shakes her head, “no, my mother was too busy being drunk and ignoring my father’s affairs.”

“Sounds like a happy family”, Alex job instincts kick in instantly, it seems like Piper would’ve been perfect as mule after all, if she just would’ve met her right after college. But no, whatever that is between the two, it is much better than recruiting the blonde, “so how _did_ this mamazing woman arise?”

“By denial, mostly”, Piper laughs.

 

.oOo.

 

Alex can’t really sleep. She doesn’t know why, but lying here in the bed, her arms around Piper, inhaling her scent and observing her sleeping peacefully makes her want to stay awake.

The smaller body lowers and raises evenly, the slightly apart lips have the faintest tremble as if Piper tries to mumble something in her sleep.

Somehow she feels like she could just stare at her for hours and feel nothing but bliss. It is crazy, she never had that kind of feeling around anyone, but Piper somehow makes her feel calm and happy, as if nothing bad would exist anywhere.

And without her everything feels a lot darker. She is the light in the darkness she didn’t even realize was there until they crossed paths.

After talking for two more hours about their lives and basically everything except for the work because Piper made it clear pretty early not to want to talk about it today, she suddenly found herself at Piper’s lips and in her arms again, starting what was going to be another wonderful love session.

Piper fell asleep pretty soon after, snuggled in Alex’s embrace, the exhaustion written all over her and since then Alex simply stared at her.

She carefully leans over to her for a moment and brushes across the soft skin, drawing some meaningless patterns on the cheek, the jawline, the neck down to the collarbone. Even in her sleep Piper leans into the touch, causing Alex to chuckle quietly.

She sighs as she slowly pulls away from the blonde again and takes in her surroundings. This is Piper’s bedroom. Or better said, Piper and her fiancé’s bedroom. It’s not like that difference really matters, she took Nicky’s advice to heart and knows that the man isn’t her problem. But she doesn’t want to be a cause for any problems in the blonde’s life.

She already noticed that Piper doesn’t wear her ring anymore. She didn’t wear it last night either and her fiancé clearly isn’t anywhere here, or she sure as hell wouldn’t lie in this bed now. That raises the question what happened between them, though.

Alex adds that issue to the list of topics she plans to ask Piper about the next day. Even though that strange man isn’t her problem, she doesn’t want him to be there and hence be sure he’s not _the_ man in Piper’s life anymore. She wants to know her better, something else she hardly ever feels for anyone around her; the simple interest in what a person is doing.

She brushes the blanket off her and stands up from the bed. Stretching her limbs slightly the cold hits her naked skin suddenly and she shivers as she feels around the room for something to throw on quickly. She can’t really make out any clothes but one dark jacket hanging on the doorknob.

She whips it on and presses the cloth closer to her as she leaves the bedroom to search for the bath. It’s dark in the house, but she can remember the position of the three doors on the first floor. One leads to the bedroom she just stepped out of and one of the other two must be the bathroom.

Behind the first door she opens seems to be a den. A small desk with a notebook obviously running on stand-by is positioned in the far corner, a lot of folders and books are stacked away in shelves and the two boxes Piper brought home from work are standing right next to the desk.

She closes the door again and steps to the next door which reveals the bathroom. She steps in, closes the door behind her before turning on the light and stumbles half blinded towards the toilet.

She pees, stands up, flushes the toilet and walks over to the sink to wash her hands as well as her face. Then she looks up into the mirror for the first time since entering this room and her eyes widen, her heart skips a beat, the entire world around her collapses as she stares at her own reflection.

She looks down at her, at the jacket, grabs it, straightens it and looks back to the reflection in the mirror. Three small capital letters are printed in white on the front of the black jacket.

DEA.

_to be continued..._


	9. Panic I

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 8 12:14 AM

_Breathe…_

“No, no, no”, the tiny whisper echoes through the room.

_Breathe._

The “no”s are still chanted in the room, breathless, husky and desperate, close to panic.

_Breathe!_

Finally Alex gulps in some air, she grabs the sink to steady herself, her eyes are still fixed on the three tiny mirror-inverted letters. “Calm down”, she whispers to herself and laughs a dry and nervous laugh, “this doesn’t need to mean anything, right?”

She rubs her face and stares down at the jacket again, she searches the pockets. “It could be _his_ after all”, she mumbles in a trembling voice and ignores the fact that suddenly everything is starting to make sense, Piper’s uneasiness, her overtime, the wakeup call on her day off.

The pockets are all empty and clean apart from a small inside pocket with a single silver key strapped to a thin lanyard, but no badge, no ID, not even scrunched up gum wrapper. And then she remembers the den, she probably shouldn’t do this, but she needs the confirmation.

She turns off the light and slowly steps out of the bathroom. One glimpse into the bedroom tells her that the blonde is still soundly asleep, tightly clutching the pillow Alex used, so she opens the door to the den again and this time steps in.

She turns on the light in the small room and looks around. “Where to look first?”, she mumbles and steps closer to the desk, she opens the drawers, but she finds nothing until she reaches one locked drawer.

 _Who the hell locks a drawer in his own house_ , she frowns as she pulls the key out of the jacket and slides it into the keyhole. It fits perfectly so she simply turns it until the latch snaps back and pulls the drawer open, trying to brace herself for whatever she will find in there.

The first thing she sees is a badge. A DEA badge. She touches the metal with shaky fingers, traces its shape for a moment and takes a deep breath before she puts the badge aside and takes a small wallet barely big enough for a single ID from under it.

She opens the wallet and closes her eyes as soon as she sees the picture. Slowly she crouches down until she sits on the floor and leans against the desk.

“Fuck”, she whispers and clutches the wallet tighter, “fuck, fuck, fuck.”

She forces herself to look at the ID again. The photo shows a tougher version of Piper than what she’s used to. One eyebrow is slightly cocked as if she’d dare you to do something. Her eyes, these usually gentle blue eyes stare cold into the camera. No soft smile. This isn’t the Piper she knows. But it’s her.

For a moment she just sits there, stares blankly at the ID and thinks of nothing. Suddenly she begins to laugh quietly. “And I thought the last transfer was a fuckup”, she shakes her head and doesn’t fail to notice the irony.

After she introduces Megan to Billy he asked her quietly if she was sure that she’d be good. “She agreed so easily”, he said uncertain, “you sure she’s not a cop or something?”

“With that tattoo?”, she had laughed at him.

“She could be undercover. A girl they turned.”

“Don’t worry, she’s got nothing to do with cops”, she reassured him with a serious face, “I’d know.” She was so sure about that. The way the girl talked and acted, the way she reacted when Alex told her about the cartel. It is always the most dangerous part about recruiting mules, telling them about her job, so of course she learned to spot a cop in plain clothes.

But with Piper she stopped using her brain and worry about her profession the second she decided that she wasn’t going to recruit her as a mule. What a fucking mistake.

Slowly she stands up again, leaning against the boxes for support. _The boxes_ , her head snaps to the side. The two file boxes Piper brought home from work.

She puts the ID back into the drawer, closes it gently and then carefully lifts the upper box on the desk. She opens it and stares at a mess of paper.

About twenty files, relatively thin, are squeezed side by side inside the box with one thicker file lying on top of all of them. The folder has the DEA logo printed in black and white in the middle of the front, above it is a black stamp reading c _ase ID_ and _date_ with _opened_ and _closed_ lined under it. The words _case ID_ are followed by a long combination of letters and numbers scribbled down in a neat writing. Next to _opened_ is written _February, 11 th 2013_. That was six days ago, or seven? Alex isn’t sure if it’s already past midnight.

However, it’s the day Leila ran.

She doesn’t really need to open the folder to know what it will be about. This is too much to be a coincidence. But of course she opens it anyway, hoping that she’s wrong.

 _I never guessed I’d hate to be right so much_ , Alex sighs as she stares at reports and photos about a drug found at JFK. The photos show different angles of the bag she personally packed in Frankfurt, only hours before she headed to an important meeting and three days before Leila was supposed to bring it to the States. Other pictures show the pile of heroin or just single bags of the heroin that was once inside of said suitcase.

She flicks through the pages until she sees a picture of Leila clipped to one paper. The paper is a profile of her, full name, date of birth, further information. Basically a very detailed CV.

She flips to the next page and another set of photos lets her frown. “Man, those guys really did sloppy work”, she mumbles as she sees the traces of a fight displayed on the pictures, followed by a very explicit forensics report.

The next papers are not only copies of a warrant, but also a missing person report with possible abduction signed by Piper on February 12th, not even twenty-four hours after the bag was lost. _She works fast_ , Alex has to admit.

As she turns another page, her stomach revolts for a second. She scrunches up her face and looks away briefly. “A warning would be nice”, she mutters before she looks back to the picture of the face of a very dead Leila with swollen darkened skin, bruised face and a gunshot wound in the forehead.

Other pictures follow, all of them highlight some bruises and wounds with detailed reports about them on the papers they’re clipped to.

Alex sighs and closes the folder again before putting it aside on the table. So Piper isn’t only a DEA Agent, but obviously also the agent in charge of her fucked up transport. _Fucking great_.

Now that she knows it she grasps all the signs.

When they first met, Piper was concerned and absent-minded. She already thought back then that it could have to do something with her job, but now she knows that it was a combination of the case and her fiancé.

She was uncomfortable at the club as well. Lots of rich, spoiled people who are known to get high at every chance? Of course a DEA Agent would feel out of place.

Her clothes could’ve been a giveaway, too. Police officers and agents are _the_ cliché for people who have a formal dress code, but don’t get paid well enough to stick to it with expensive clothes.

Piper’s reflex in the restroom becomes clearer now as well. Most cops carry their gun at the right hip. When they get startled they move their hands towards the gun, ready to defend themselves. It’s an instinct they learn pretty fast and it never really goes away.

Then there is the phone call of course. Really, who gets called in to work at 6 AM? On a day off? And with that urgency? Alex remembers how Piper tensed and went from half-asleep to wide-awake in a matter of milliseconds. Now she can guess that Nicky, who therefore must be a DEA Agent as well, told her they found Leila in the river.

She sighs again and shakes all those thoughts off. It’s too late to be upset about her stupidity anyway. She has to concentrate.

She pulls some of the other files out, they have different stamps and logos from various police departments displayed on the front. Some cases are closed, some not, but before she can open the first folder, she hears something and tenses.

Her head snaps back and she listens closely, waiting for the noise to repeat itself. “Shit”, she mumbles as she recognizes the muffled voice of Piper calling out for her.

Hastily she puts the files all back into the box and stacks the box on the other. She tiptoes to the door, turns of the light and then slowly pushes the door handle down. She carefully opens the door until she can peer out.

The hallway is empty, so she slips out of the den and closes the door quietly behind her.

As she enters the bedroom again she sees a groggily muttering Piper leaning over the rim of the bed with her back towards Alex, she searches something on the ground.

Alex slowly takes of the jacket, hangs it back on the doorknob and crawls back into the bed. As the mattress shifts under her weight, Piper yelps, spins around and raises her hand, ready to throw a punch, making Alex jump as well.

“Gosh, Alex”, Piper sighs as she realizes who just joined her in bed and drops her fist. Alex releases a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. Now it doesn’t really surprise her that Piper has such reflexes, but she does count herself lucky that the blonde doesn’t seem to hide a gun under her pillow. “Where’ve you been?”

“Bathroom?”, she answers as if questioning if that’s alright.

“Oh”, Piper just nods and lays back into the mattress, whatever she was searching for obviously forgotten or not important anymore. Alex lies down as well and rests on her arm so that she can look at her. “I thought you bailed”, Piper says in a sad voice which sounds even more pitiful because of her tiredness.

“Now why would I do that?”, Alex asks in a soft voice and gently strokes Piper’s arm. But of course she knows why she would do that, she thought of it after all. As soon as her brain registered the three letters on the jacket she thought of a lot of things. Running, panicking, running, confronting Piper and of course running. But she didn’t do anything of that. Well, maybe she panicked for a second, but now she lies here next to Piper. What she would’ve done if Piper wouldn’t have woken up she isn’t sure though.

“Karma, I guess?”

“Don’t worry”, she whispers and pulls her into an embrace, she runs her fingers through the blonde hair, “I’m not going anywhere.” _At least not yet_ , she adds in her head with a faint sigh.

Piper drifts back to sleep pretty fast, Alex on the other hand can’t fall asleep again, albeit for different reasons than earlier. She still ponders what to do. The way she sees it this can either be a very good thing or a very bad thing.

Now being close to Piper means that she is able to keep up with the investigation of the case. She could sneak into the den at any time and read the files, find out what exactly Piper knows and what not.

But what happens if Piper finds out what Alex does? And that she is more than just related to her current case? “The agents assigned to the case are not, under any circumstances bribable”, she remembers Kubra saying to her.

How certain can she be that Piper doesn’t already know?

 

.oOo.

 

Piper wakes up embraced by two arms, with one leg across hers. She can feel a soft breath against her neck. A few seconds after Piper had time to regain complete consciousness her mobile rings.

“I’m really starting to hate that thing”, the brunette mutters from behind her, arms and legs still wrapped around her.

“Well, this time it’s my alarm”, Piper whispers and pries off Alex’s arms with surprisingly small effort. In contrast to the last morning this time Alex doesn’t seem too eager to keep Piper in her embrace. She bents over the rim and searches for the phone like she did when she thought Alex was gone. It is definitely easier to find when it’s blaring.

She turns it off and turns to Alex whose eyes are still closed. “You interested in some breakfast?”

One of Alex’s eyes opens and she answers with a very sleepy voice, “well, I’m awake. Kinda.”

“Great, I’ll take a shower and then make some breakfast”, Piper stands up from the bed and begins to walk towards the door.

She expects a reaction to that from the brunette, a seductive comment, a smirk. She expects her to suggest joining her, which she would then decline, but instead Alex just makes a grumpy noise of understanding.

So Piper simply leaves the bedroom and heads to the bathroom. She takes a quick shower and with a towel strapped around her body she steps back into the bedroom. Meanwhile Alex drifted back to sleep.

She smiles at the sight, she hasn’t seen the brunette sleeping before. They know each other for barely a week, but it makes her happy to just look at her. But as she turns towards her wardrobe, her gaze swiftly crosses a picture of her and Larry at the beach and guilt settles in her stomach.

She sighs and decides not to go down that road now. She tried to talk to him so often, but he never seemed to listen. In her mind their end was inevitable. Never a question of if, but when.

She pulls out some decent clothes and puts them on before she walks over to the bed again and softly shakes Alex on her shoulder. “Alex?”, she whispers and repeats her task until the brunette opens her eyes slowly and groans, “I’m gonna make some breakfast now, you can take a shower. Towels are in the left cabinet.”

Alex just nods and groans again instead of giving her a verbal answer. _Something is off_ , Piper thinks. She wasn’t like that yesterday morning when Piper had to leave her. But she shakes it off, she has other things on her mind right now.

She grabs into the inside pocket of her DEA jacket which hangs loosely on the door and frowns as she can’t find the key in there. She checks the other pockets as well, but they’re all empty. “Weird”, she mumbles as she leaves the bedroom and opens the door to the den.

The key she searched for is in the lock, she must have left in there, even though she could’ve sworn that she put it back into her jacket like she always does. _It’s probably just the lack of sleep_ , she thinks and opens the drawer to take out her ID and badge. She puts the ID inside of her blazer and clips the badge to her belt before she closes and locks the drawer again and discards the key in one of her pockets as well.

She goes downstairs into the kitchen and begins to make some pancakes when she hears the shower turned on.

 

.oOo.

 

Alex thought for a second about going back into the den when Piper left her in the bed, but she didn’t want to risk getting caught while sniffing around again, so she stood up and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

As the warm water patters on her skin she sighs yet again deep in thought about what she found out last night. While she held Piper in her embrace last night she came to the conclusion that she’ll at least talk to Piper about her job before making any further decision on how to handle this whole situation.

But however she looks at it, it all comes to the same conclusion; continuing with whatever this is between her and Piper is a damn big risk and definitely the most opposite from what she suggested Kubra to do, namely lying low.

After a few minutes she steps out of the shower and dries her body off. She wraps her hair in another towel and goes back to the bedroom to dress in yesterday’s clothes, since she didn’t really plan ahead and brought anything else.

With her hair still wet she steps down the stairs, not without catching a glimpse at the door to the den again and feeling uneasiness creeping up her spine. As she enters the kitchen she sees Piper fully clothed and obviously ready for work making the last pancake and putting it on the plate on top of the others.

She sits down at the table and waits until Piper sits down as well and slides one plate over to her with a kind smile on her face.

“Thanks”, Alex mumbles, picks up a fork and absently picks at the pancakes for a moment before she starts to eat them. They taste very good, though somehow slightly different from what she’s used to. “So”, she begins, takes a deep breath and looks up at Piper’s face, “you’re a DEA Agent.” It isn’t a question and it doesn’t really come out the way she planned. She hoped to make it sound interested, or just simply asking for confirmation, but instead it sounds like an accusation.

Piper’s gaze drop, she suddenly looks as uncomfortable as Alex feels right now. She wonders why that is. “How’d you know?”

“Your jacket”, Alex simply says. Of course she leaves the rest of last night’s story out of it, but the three small letters on the front and the three big letters on the back are hard to miss, so they should be reason enough.

“Oh, yeah”, Piper sighs, looks back up and nods her head slowly, “yeah, I’m a DEA Agent.”

“Did you plan to share?”, Alex asks, her tone this time more gentle, but still not as gentle as it should be.

“Well, you never asked what I do, Al”, the blonde justifies and Alex huffs in response. But of course she’s right, she never asked Piper what she’s doing for living. She simply didn’t care, not until that wake-up call at least. Oh, how she now wishes she would’ve cared sooner. “This is why I hate it”, Piper sighs after a few minutes of pure silence filled with tension between them.

Alex cranes an eyebrow in confusion, “what is why you hate what?”

“I should be used to the disapproval by now. Whenever I told someone what I wanna do when I’m grown up or what I do now they look at me as if I’m nuts”, Piper shakes her head and leans back into her chair, she gazes outside of the window. “It’s nothing compared to my mother’s reaction. _You should do better than that. You are a debutant. You are a Chapman”_ , she says with a swanky voice, obviously mocking her mother, “but it hurts nonetheless.”

Alex is a bit taken aback by that. She didn’t really expect Piper to have to endure disapproval by people who are her family, friends and not, unlike her, involved in crime. “I didn’t say I don’t approve”, she says in a small voice, because, well, she didn’t. Finally the accusing tone is completely vanished.

“But you do”, Piper simply states and looks back at her. Alex sighs and drops her head. She doesn’t verbally agree, but she doesn’t deny it either and that’s basically all the agreement someone needs. “Why?”, the blonde asks her. It doesn’t sound sad or like whining, but simple curiosity.

 _Because I’m a drug dealer_ , Alex thinks, _because you’re investigating against me_.

The blonde sighs and shakes her head when she realizes that Alex isn’t going to answer her, “well, I have to go to work.”

“Do you want me to drive you?”, Alex proposes without hesitation. She has to drive to Manhattan anyway, so she can take her with her as well, even if it’d be way more than just awkward to chauffeur a cop around.

“No, I’m taking the subway”, Piper stands up and puts the empty dishes in the sink. Alex doesn’t argue, maybe it’s better when she doesn’t drive Piper, or some very stupid remark could crawl its way to the surface.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 8 09:53 AM

Hair sticks to her forehead. Sweat runs down her face and she hastily wipes it away between two punches.

“Here you are”, her colleague’s voice hollers from the entrance and the wild-haired woman steps closer, but Piper doesn’t turn, grunting she continues with the punches and jabs, occasionally throwing a kick in between. “Haven’t seen you down here in a long time.”

Nicky steps behind the punching bag, grabs it and puts her full weight against it to steady it so that the bag won’t sway anymore after Piper hits it.

“Imagine my shock when I came to work and my favorite blondie didn’t bring me a cup of warm coffee a few minutes later”, Nicky says as if she’s deeply offended by that.

Piper ignores her, simply keeps hitting the bag until she can’t hold her arms up anymore. She bents down and catches her breath. When she looks up again she sees a sympathetic look on Nicky’s face. Oh, how she hates that look.

She likes that she can talk with Nicky about basically anything, but it’s usually accompanied with a smirk and a cocky or sarcastic remark. Sometimes though she goes completely sympathetic on Piper and she doesn’t like it. Mostly because it means that she really has to make a miserable impression when even Nicky drops her usual attitude.

“What happened?”, the wild-haired woman asks after a moment of silence besides the blonde’s heavy breathing.

“Hardly anything”, Piper says, takes off her boxing gloves and grabs a nearby towel to dry off the sweat on her face. It’s not really a lie. There didn’t happen anything. Yes, Alex didn’t really react all chipper when she learned about her profession, but it’s not like that’s the end of the world. Or is it? She sighs as Nicky just stares at her, waiting for her to keep talking. “Alex knows I’m a DEA Agent.”

“So?”

“Her reaction was not exactly a dance of joy.”

“She’ll get used to it”, Nicky says with an encouraging grin and gives the blond a light slap on her sweaty shoulder, “they always do.” She furrows her brow and adds “save our mothers.”

 

.oOo.

 

Newark, New Jersey  
Springfield/Belmont  
Day 8 12:02 PM

Alex still thinks about the last night and the following morning as she sits at the table in the _living room_ of the warehouse. Across from her sits Fahri. To her left a young black girl with a single blonde streak in her big hair she has never seen before today is seated, to her right sits Megan.

Fahri talks about something Alex lost track on long time ago. Her mind is occupied with Piper. She still isn’t sure what to do, she doesn’t really want to distance herself from the blonde, but it seems like the best solution with the least problems.

“Alex”, her gaze snaps back to Fahri as she hears him snapping her name at her. She looks quizzically at him and he sighs, “did you even listen?”

“Of course”, she lies and Fahri shakes his head, fully aware of the truth, so he repeats whatever he was talking about for her. “You will take Megan und Tasha-“

“It’s Taystee, actually”, the black girl interrupts him, but Fahri keeps talking as if she didn’t say anything at all.

“-to Chicago for a test run.”

Alex furrows her brow. Not because she has to go to Chicago, or because she technically is still on the not really voluntarily vacation. “I pick my girls myself”, she says.

“Don’t worry, Tasha isn’t going to make any runs for you.”

 _Then why take her to Chicago_ , Alex thinks and gets the answer to that as Taystee gives her a short explanation, “Vee wants me to pick up some tricks ‘bout the biz.”

Vee.

She heard of that woman, but never talked to her or even saw her. She is one of Kubra’s dealers. Though she doesn’t really deal. She’s as much of a dealer herself as Alex is a mule. Like Alex Vee simply hires and organizes people to work for her and while Alex usually picks naïve fresh college graduates, Vee picks kids and teenagers.

It’s one reason why she isn’t really fond of that mysterious woman. Alex knows that what she does isn’t good in any way, not for the women she picks, not for the customers of the cartel and not in the view of the law. But at least she makes sure to stay clear from kids.

And the fact that she puts one of her kids under her wing doesn’t really sit well with her.

_to be continued..._


	10. Panic II

Newark, New Jersey  
Springfield/Belmont  
Day 9 01:02 PM

It is now a day ago that Alex learned about Piper’s profession. She hasn’t spoken to her since. The blonde tried to call her three times during the previous day, but Alex ignored her cell, not sure what to say or what to do.

She’s back at the warehouse with Taystee and Megan, showing them how to pack a bag as her cell rings again. She put it on mute, but it makes a loud noise anyway as it vibrates on the wooden desk next to her.

Alex stares at the phone, but can’t identify the caller because of the reflection, even though she’s pretty sure who it is. As Taystee leans over the desk and stares at the screen, she wants to fuzz at her to stay away from her stuff, but instead just asks, “who is it?”

“Some blonde chick.”

Alex sighs, nods and simply turns back to the bag, continuing with her previous task. The only number a picture of _some blonde chick_ added to is Piper’s.

“You ain’t gonna get that?”

“Nope”, she answers with finality and then gestures to Taystee and the bag, “and now come here, this is important.”

While she shows them how to close the seams so that nobody would be suspicious, the phone ceases its movements eventually. A few minutes later it buzzes anew, but a lot shorter, indicating that she just got a message, probably also from Piper. That would be message number nine by now, none of the prior were read by her.

“Chick is persistent”, Taystee mumbles and Alex only nods in agreement.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 9 01:09 PM

“No luck?”, Piper hears her colleague asking as she comes back into their shared office. She still stares at the message she sent to Alex seconds ago. A simple _Call me, please_. Her earlier messages were all pretty similar to that one.

She’s trying to reach Alex since her break yesterday, but the brunette never picked up or answered to any of the text messages.

“No”, Piper sighs and puts the phone down on the desk before she plops down on her chair and grabs the closest file from the _yet-to-read_ stack.

“Don’t worry, Chapman, she’ll come around”, Nicky assures her and grabs a file from the same pile as well.

“What makes you sure of that?”

Nicky shrugs and opens the file, “she seemed confident in the bar.”

“What do you mean with that?”

“Ah, come on, don’t play the dumb blonde, blondie”, Nicky sighs and Piper just glares at her until she continues, “the way she looked at you. Pure Confidence. Certainty. Like a lion looks at an antelope right before sinking its teeth in the soft flesh.”

Piper stays quiet while she tries to remember Alex’s eyes, always fixed at her own eyes or lips or any other part of her body. Whenever she was in Alex presence and looked at the brunette, the brunette glimpsed at her as well. Observing every step she took. Like a predator. And Piper was the prey.

But what now after her hunt was successful?

“Aside from that I _hope_ she’ll come around”, Nicky pulls her out of her thoughts once more, “I really don’t want to kill her.”

Confused Piper looks at her colleague, “what?”

Nicky shrugs and turns her gaze back to the file in her hands. “I told her I’d kill her if she breaks your heart”, she says nonchalantly and Piper can’t do more than stare at her.

 

.oOo.

 

Chicago, Illinois  
Southwest Side  
Chicago Midway International Airport  
Day 9 08:14 PM

Alex sits in a leased car parked in a lot near the entrance to the airport, waiting for her two new trainees. They seemed confident when she gave them the packed bags yesterday. Or so they thought.

They weren’t packed. She showed them how to do it so that they’d pass customs, but then swapped them with identical bags without any drugs or money in it. She wasn’t going to risk goods or her freedom for a test run after all.

She gazes at the clock and then opens the app on her mobile to see when the plane is supposed to be landing. There’s still time, plenty of time actually. Nearly twenty minutes until the scheduled landing.

So she gazes out of the window until her mobile rings. She looks down at the device in her hand and frowns. The screen is black, no vibration, no sound, nothing. Then she hears another ring and remembers her private phone in her handbag on the passenger seat.

She bends over and rummages in it until she finds the phone and grabs it. On the screen is the same blonde pictured who called her yesterday and the day before. Who left lots of messages for her. None of them she returned.

Alex sighs, she has to deal with her at one point. Now is as good - or bad, depending how you look at it - as any other time. So she accepts the call and reluctantly puts the device near her ear.

“Hello?”

Immediately after answering the phone she hears a relieved breath. “God, Alex, finally”, Piper sighs in the phone, followed by a shaky laugh, “I was starting to worry.”

“Hey, sorry, I…”, Alex trails of and gazes out of the window again where everything is dark. A plane prepares for a landing at the far end of the airport as she tries to come up with something to say and comes up with a lame, “things have been a little crazy.”

She just hears the steady breath of Piper for a few seconds who obviously doesn’t really know what to say either. When an airplane flies over the car and fills Alex’s ears with its loud turbines, just as she opens her mouth to break this uncomfortable semi silence, the blonde speaks up, “are you at an airport?”

“Yeah”, Alex says and looks back into the direction of the terminal, “in Chicago, actually.”

“I hope, you don’t eat the garbage they call pizza over there”, Piper says with clearly audible disgust in her voice, causing Alex to laugh slightly, but she doesn’t comment the blonde’s obvious hatred for deep dish. “What are you doing there anyway?”

“Business”, Alex responds without hesitation and then kicks herself inwardly. She can’t risk talking about her work with the blonde even in the slightest way. If she lets something slip, she’s screwed. Big time.

“I thought you’re on vacation.”

“Well, you got called in on your day off, didn’t you?”

“Touché”, is all Piper says and then lets the topic drop again. Alex hears her take a deep breath before she continues with, “we should talk about that, by the way.”

“Your day off?”, Alex asks in faked confusion. Of course she knows what they should talk about. But she’d rather forget the entire situation and everything what comes with it right now.

“My job. Our last conversation wasn’t really…”, Piper trails off, but Alex knows what she means. They didn’t clarify anything, not even the real issue. Alex just got quiet and Piper got frustrated before she all but stormed out to work.

“We should”, Alex eventually agrees and then looks over to her other phone as it makes a beeping sound. She unlocks it and reads on the short notification that the plane landed. “But not now. Work needs my attention”, Alex sighs and runs a hand through her hair, “I’ll call you as soon as I can, okay, kid?” Her voice doesn’t really sound convincing and she sighs again after she realizes that.

“Okay”, Piper just says and then, after a short farewell, they hang up again. And Alex still doesn’t know what to do and what to say when she’ll call her. If she can find the courage to do that anyway. It’d be much easier if she could just disappear on the blonde. But how can you disappear on a cop?

Thirteen minutes later she gets the first text on her business mobile. It says _Checkpoint One,_ exactly what she told them to write. After thirty-seven minutes the second text arrives and another seven minutes later she hears a knock at the window of her car. The two women smile wide smiles at her, their white teeth flashing in the dark.

She opens the door and steps out of the car. “Welcome to Chicago”, is all she says as she heads to the trunk, opens it and deposits the two bags inside.

“Any problems?”, she asks them as they all sit in the car and head towards a hotel she booked rooms for them earlier.

They decline immediately. “What’s next?”, Taystee asks.

“We stay at the hotel and tomorrow you’ll travel to Europe, meet a colleague of yours and learn.”

“And you?”

“I won’t”, is all Alex says and continues to drive them in silence. She’ll stay the next days in Chicago, meet up with some clients Fahri asked her to meet, but that’s none of the girls’ business. She doesn’t usually meet any of their clients personally or when she does not alone, but this is a favor for Fahri. And it’s not bad to have the right hand of Kubra owe you something.

After that she’ll wait for the girls to return and end the test run before heading back to New York together with them.

 

.oOo.

 

“So, how are they doing?”, Fahri asks her on the phone the next day after the two girls headed to the airport to fly to their next destination, his voice crackles due to the bad line.

“Not bad. Actually this Taystee girl seems to be really good. A bit goofy, but determined”, Alex has to admit, though she still doesn’t like the fact that she was just passed to her without even asking.

“Good, then everybody will be happy.”

“What’s the deal with her, though?”, Alex inquires.

“Vee wants her to learn.”

That much she already knows. “And since when does Kubra was Vee says?”, she asks irritated. Vee isn’t that big of a shot in the cartel. She has influence, yes, but not enough to make Kubra even twitch. Aside from that she doesn’t get why Vee wants a girl who is supposed to sell drugs to learn how to smuggle them from country to country.

“You need to ask Kubra for that.”

She sighs and shakes her head thoughtfully. “He probably just knows it bugs me”, she laughs softly, “this is my punishment for Leila.”

“Probably”, Fahri agrees.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Queens  
Astoria  
Day 10 01:49 PM

The tiny bell above the door chimes as Nicky opens it and steps into the small market with an integrated bakeshop. Piper follows suit with some files tucked under her arm. She puts them down on the next best table and then joins her colleague at the counter.

“Coming!”, a female voice hollers from the back of the store moments before Red turns around the corner. Her green apron is stained with flour, her red dyed hair is hidden under a hairnet. She looks down at her apron and tries in vain to brush the flour off it while huffing.

Nicky made the suggestion that they grab their lunch at _Dmitri’s_ instead of the cafeteria.

“We don’t have enough time for that”, Piper protested at first. They needed almost their entire break to just arrive at the small market in Queens, so they definitely didn’t have enough time to eat there.

“So? We’ll just say we follow a lead or something like that”, Nicky argued, “we need to get out of here for some hours. _You_ need to get out of here”, she clarified and poked the blonde roughly on her sternum.

Nicky wasn’t wrong. They’ve been at the office for the last days without leaving for a lead or investigation even once, Piper herself even staying late, distracting herself with reading files and viewing the few evidence again and again without really getting closer to anything.

So she sighed in defeat and agreed, but not without grabbing randomly some of the files she didn’t read yet. Nicky didn’t comment that, but simply shook her head.

“Hey, ma”, Nicky greets her mother of choice whereat Red looks up from her apron to stare into Nicky’s brown eyes and forms a small smile with her red lips. Then her gaze switches to Piper.

“And you brought blondie”, her tone is neutral. Piper never really knows if the Russian woman is happy to see her, or wants her to go. Or if she just has no opinion about her at all.

Granted, they had a pretty bad start when Piper told her that she isn’t really that fond of the Russian cuisine. The woman who takes a lot of pride in her cooking, how Piper learned later, took it personal and since then tried her best to convince Piper of her culinary art. With success, Piper has to admit. Especially the breakfasts and sweets she began to devour with pleasure after a short while.

“Red”, Piper simply nods at her and smiles her usual smile.

“What can I do for you?”, Red asks and puts some see-through plastic gloves on.

The two agents order their lunch composed of some sweet baked goods and Red wastes no time to put the order together. “Priyatnogo appetita”, she hands them the filled plates and then disappears to the kitchen again to prepare a, how she calls it, special treat for her daughter.

“She spoils you”, Piper says dryly to Nicky as they sit down. Her colleague just shrugs and takes a bite of the food. Piper does the same and meanwhile skims yet another file she brought with her.

This one is about a drug cartel from South Africa, operating all over the world and known to be active in the USA as well, but none of the former evidence seems to be from the east coast. Whoever works for this cartel doesn’t seem to do it around here, so she dismisses the file for now.

The file she takes next is distinctly thinner than the first, she sighs, full aware that that means, they won’t have many evidence for this cartel. She opens it and skims it as well. The presumably leader is Kubra Balik, but there’s not much known about him. He’s a Turkish citizen and under surveillance, which rarely seems to work.

Every time some evidence pointed at him in the past, it simply vanished, same goes for witnesses. Whenever the DEA was on the verge of even remotely pinning him down, he disappeared and wasn’t seen for months. But he was spotted at JFK only a few weeks ago, entering the country.

The rest of the file shows bad pictures of him and other people, one man with short dark hair and a mustache particularly often.

“What do you think about them?”, Piper asks her colleague and tosses the light file over.

Nicky opens it and skims through the few pages and pictures, “not much in here.”

“Exactly”, Piper nods, “that means they’re good.”

“Or innocent”, Nicky hands the file back to the blonde who just ignores the comment and puts the file aside as well, but not before marking it with a blank red sticky note, so she doesn’t forget to put it on the _possible-suspects_ pile when she’s back at the office later.

A young blonde girl with cornrows steps close to the table and puts a teapot, two cups and a bowl with warenje between the two women. “Red told me, to bring you that”, Tricia says. The girl isn’t just one of Red’s employees, she is one of her protégés and only here because of Nicky and Piper.

The two found the girl over a year ago on the streets of New York, wandering aimlessly around with dark eyes, glossy skin and twitching muscles. Her whole body trembled and not just because of the early winter’s cold.

She practically radiated cold turkey and the two brought her to Red, because they knew that the Russian woman with disgust for drugs of any kind takes young addicts and street kids under her wing if she can afford it at the time.

And she took Tricia as well, which was good for Nicky and Piper as well since she could name some of the local dealers after her condition got better.

“Thanks”, Piper smiles politely at Tricia, noticing how much better she looks contrary to the last time she saw her when her eyes still seemed kind of hollow and her skin hung limply on her bones like a wet towel on a line. She pours in some tea for herself and Nicky. Tricia steps behind the counter and begins to clean it, while Piper and Nicky enjoy their lunch further.

“So”, Nicky eventually begins and puts yet another file away, “how are things with Vause?”

Out of the corner of her eye Piper can see Tricia look up from the counter, obviously paying attention to their conversation, but she doesn’t give it a second thought.

“No word”, Piper sighs and rubs her temple. She doesn’t really want to think about her right now. It’s been three days since the other woman told her that she’s on a business trip in Chicago. Three days since she promised she’d call her.

But her voice was hollow, sick with guilt, she could already tell back then that she wouldn’t receive a call from Alex anytime soon. She began to ponder for the reason of it, but didn’t come up with anything good since she didn’t really want to believe that her occupation could be a reason for this sharp retreat. Or the only reason at least.

“She will talk”, Nicky assures her yet again with confidence in her voice, confidence Piper doesn’t really share, so she just chooses to dismiss this topic and sticks her head back into the file she’s currently holding.

That is until a “wow” is nearly whispered from across the room. Piper turns her head to Tricia who stares at them with wide eyes.

“What?”

“No offense”, the girl says and walks across the counter to step closer to their table again, “but I never thought she’d get caught.”

“Who?”, Nicky asks confused and looks up from her file as well.

“Alex Vause. You’re talking ‘bout her, aren’t you?”

Piper furrows her brow and drops the file, before she turns her whole body towards Tricia and tilts her head. “How do you know Alex?”

“I only heard about her through a friend”, Tricia answers with a shrug, “said she’s badass and doesn’t slip. So I didn’t think you’d get her.”

Slowly it dawns on Piper what the other blonde seems to be talking about and her breathing gets heavier.

She thinks they arrested Alex.

_to be continued..._


	11. Doubt

New York City, New York  
Queens  
Astoria  
Day 10 02:27 PM

The blonde blinks. Once. Twice. While she doesn’t avert her gaze from the girl who watches her strangely, not aware of the fact that her expression is even weirder.

“What?“, Tricia eventually asks her and sits down at the table as well, but Piper's mind doesn’t even really register the question. She sees the lips moving, but besides her own racing thoughts she can’t hear anything.

She thinks they arrested her. But why? There’s only one way to find out, Piper says in her mind and tries to prepare herself for whatever she is about to learn.

“What did she do?“, she questions the other blonde carefully and closes her eyes for a second, not sure if she really wants to know the answer.

“Wait“, Tricia stutters as the realization of her misinterpretation seems to settle in, “you don’t have her in custody, do you?“

“Just answer the question“, Piper nearly growls through clenched teeth and stares at the girl.

“Fuck, no“, Tricia exclaims in an instant and jumps up from her chair, nearly knocking one of the cups over in the motion, “I ain’t a snitch!“

“You’re our informant“, Nicky buzzes in after silently observing the conversation until now.

“Yes, on before discussed topics. That woman isn’t part of any deal.“

Piper huffs annoyed. This is what you get when you save an addicted street kid and try to make a second chance a possibility for her rather than just handing her over to the responsible authorities. „We can always cut that deal, you know?“, she threatens the girl. She doesn’t really mean to say that and she won’t ever do that to her, but she wants to know what Tricia thinks to know about Alex.

Piper ignores the somewhat shocked and skeptical look on the face of her colleague and instead concentrates fully on Tricia's widened eyes. „You wouldn’t do that“, she states, but her voice wavers. She sounds unsure, unconvinced of her own words.

“Try me.“

Tricia just looks at her for a moment before she sighs in defeat, obviously buying Piper’s bluff, “all I know is that she’s involved in some kind of drug smuggling.“

Piper closes her eyes after hearing that. Well, what did she expect? When Tricia thought they arrested her it had to be because of some relation to drugs. They’re DEA Agents. Everything else would’ve been rather weird.

She hears light footsteps move away and guesses that Nicky dismissed the girl with some kind of nonverbal nod. She keeps her eyes closed, desperately trying to think, but her head is empty besides of a dull thud which echoes through her head, announcing an upcoming headache.

“This doesn’t mean anything, you know that, right?“, she hears her colleague say in an attempt to lighten the clearly fucked up situation.

“Right“, Piper scoffs with her eyes still closed, “because previously her information was so inaccurate.“ The angry sarcasm is practically dripping from her voice. Up until now Tricia’s information has been absolutely perfect. Every tiny bit of a lead she offered the two in the past led to an arrest and verdict. The girl might be young, but she has an undeniably talent for listening and remembering.

“Yeah, but she knew the others personally“, Nicky reasons and finally Piper opens her eyes again. She looks up to see a small smile on the face of the crazy-haired woman and can’t help but smile herself. Maybe she’s right. Maybe Tricia's information is false.

But what if it isn’t?

 

.oOo.

 

Chicago, Illinois  
Day 10 10:13 PM

Finally the owner of the local nightclub agrees with her conditions. Originally this issue should have been through the day before yesterday, but this man is as stubborn as possible. Fahri definitely owes her something now.

She watches the owner leave the small VIP lounge and stays behind, listening to the music, thinking. She still hasn’t called Piper how she promised, she just can’t come up with something to say. But she’s very surprised that the other woman didn’t contact her either.

She takes her cell out and looks at it, by now she read the messages from Piper. They were all short pleas to just call her. Nothing more, just requests to confirm that she’s still very much breathing. But since she accepted one of her calls there was nothing new, no other try to contact her in any way.

She seems to respect that Alex has no time at the moment, even though she has, plenty actually. She stares at the phone. _But what would I say?_ , she thinks to herself and shakes her head. She really doesn’t know.

She wants her, she wants her so bad. She never felt like this for anybody and she barely knows her for what, two weeks by now? It shouldn’t be this way, but it is. She can’t change that.

But she can’t ignore the facts either. Piper is a cop. A DEA Agent. The _enemy_ , so to speak. She’s basically the worst she could keep company with in this line of work. A very high risk.

She sighs and puts the phone away again. She’ll deal with it later, when she’s home again and truly off-work. When she had the time to really think about what to say.

She just hopes she’ll come up with something.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 11 09:07 AM

 “Are you still here or again?”, Nicky sighs as she enters the office, but she doesn’t get any reaction from the blonde who just stares at the flickering monitor.

Nicky’s brown eyes eye the usually tidy but now very messy desk and she shakes her head at the sight of the mug half filled with coffee. Cold coffee. “Still, then.”

Piper still doesn’t react, so her colleague steps closer to the desk. She doesn’t gaze at the monitor but the paper chaos instead. There are files and notes scattered all over the place, Nicky simply shakes her head at the chaos.

The blonde had an idea yesterday in the evening, right after Nicky told her she’ll call it a day and get home. She tried to make Piper do the same and the blonde let her believe that she succeeded, that she’d go home in a few minutes as well, but she didn’t.

She tried to put a puzzle together and for that she needed to remember every conversation and every action of Alex, the, according to Tricia, drug smuggler.

She told her that she’s an importer with the slightest second of a hesitation. But she didn’t clarify further, didn’t tell her what it is she imports. And back then Piper didn’t necessarily care. Maybe she should have, she thought in retro perspective, but if what Tricia told her is true Alex probably would’ve just lied about that anyway.

At one point Alex also told her that she travels a lot due to her job. National and international. And that she just came back from Europe. This tiny fact brought an idea to her mind. She wasn’t really allowed to do this, but she wanted to make sure that Alex is involved in something illegal. Or better said that she is not. She wanted to be sure that Tricia talked about a different Alex Vause. Or that her information was wrong.

“As if”, Piper breathed and texted a certain IT genius before she began to browse the databases she had access to for the brunette.

After a long time of finding nothing, not even a speeding ticket, her mobile chirped, the number was withheld, she expected nothing else from the overcautious man.

“You know this is illegal, right?”, the as always a little bit uneasy voice asked her without any further greeting as she accepted the call even though he was far from unsure.

“Sure”, Piper answers with a shrug as if he could see her, “that’s why I asked you and didn’t do it myself.”

There is a moment of silence, leaving Piper uncertain about her choice to ask for help, but then a huff echoes from the phone, followed by a short and tired “I’ll see what I can do”, before the line is disconnected. Piper grins broadly, happy to be right about thinking that she still could rely on her little brother.

After a few hours she got an e-mail from him, reading nothing but a short “take care, sis.” Attached to the e-mail was what she asked him for; a list of Alex’s credit card bill. This was definitely highly illegal, not to mention immoral, but it was also the only way she knew of how to find out about Alex’s last travels.

The last one was from New York to Chicago, not very surprising since Alex told her that she’s there for business. _Whatever that means at this point_. And she also had booked a flight back for this evening already.

But the flight before the one to Chicago left a bad taste in Piper’s mouth. It was on the 12th of February, the day the drugs were found at JFK. From none other place than Frankfurt, Germany to New York City.

It wasn’t flight LH-404, but she was there, in Frankfurt, the same time as Leila, coming back to the States the same day, only a few hours earlier. Coincidence? _It has to be_ , Piper thought as she opened the video files.

“What are you looking at?”, Nicky now asks her only about one and a half hours after Piper received the list from Cal, “the JFK footage?” The crazy-haired woman shakes her head, draws her chair close and sits down next to the blonde, “you watched that already like ten times.”

“Not this part”, Piper speaks for the first time since her colleague entered the office and nods at the timestamp of the video. 05:20:13 PM. The seconds and minutes are changing rapidly as she watches the video sped up.

Nicky is right, she watched this videos a lot, always looking for someone who observes Leila as she leaves the airport or even follows her, coming up with nothing every time. But she always only watched the footage where Leila is seen.

And this time she doesn’t pay the young woman any mind anyway, she searches for a different person in the crowd. She already found her, at an earlier timeframe of the video, obviously arriving to the States and then just leaving the airport, but Piper has the feeling that that wasn’t all.

“Okay”, Nicky sighs and eyes the monitor now as well where the video is split in four parts of four different locations of terminal one, “what are we looking for?”

Suddenly Piper hits the space bar, pausing the video and leans closer to the monitor. She furrows her brow and zooms in on one of the segments. She slows the speed down before she presses the same key again. The people keep on moving, hurrying laggard through the airport. The numbers of the timestamp change at a slow pace.

The blonde points at a woman with dark hair holding a phone to her ear in the crowd. “Her”, is all she says as the woman turns around and faces the camera, black rimmed glasses adorn her face.

The video has not the best quality, but it’s not really hard to tell that the woman who towers over most of the other women hurrying across the airport is Alex.

“Vause was at the airport… So?”, Nicky asks bewildered.

“She flew in from Frankfurt that day, about four hours prior”, Piper sighs and hands Nicky the information about Alex’s flight pattern over the last months she printed out.

“Where did you get this?”, her colleague mumbles and skims the numbers and letters.

“I have my ways”, Piper simply shrugs and concentrates her attention back to the monitor. She rewinds the video up to the point Alex enters the field of view and observes her actions in normal speed.

She seems to stare at the info panel and paces before she makes a short call. Thirteen long minutes of observing the pixels in the monitor pacing back and forth, Alex talks on the phone again.

Piper tries to read the brunette’s lips but the video is too hazy to make out complete sentences. She thinks that she can read the word “fuck” though. Quite often actually. After ending the call, Alex leaves the airport again and Piper pauses the video. She reads the timestamp. 05:42:57 PM.

She leans back and closes her eyes, runs a hand through her hair and finally gives her astonishingly quiet colleague some attention. “We got the call right before our end of shift, right?”

“Yeah”, Nicky nods and leans back as well, obviously putting the pieces together herself. “This still doesn’t need to mean anything”, she says however, but her voice is far less convincing then the first time.

Piper scoffs and shakes her head. Oh, how much she wants to believe that this doesn’t mean anything, that all of this is just a big coincidence. But it fits, it all fits so perfectly.

And it really would explain Alex’s detachment since the exact moment she read the letters on Piper’s jacket. Because she remembers how the brunette wasn’t just off while their short talk at breakfast, but from the minute she was awake.

“If it’d be anyone else, we probably would be sitting in the car by now”, Nicky mumbles in an odd amused tone. But she’s right, if it wouldn’t be Alex, they would scrape up all the information and make their way to the suspect.

“According to the list”, Piper points at the paper she gave Nicky minutes ago and is still clutched by her colleague, “she comes back in a few hours.” She grabs her mug and sips at the coffee, but spits it out again as soon as she realizes that the black liquid is far from warm.

“So we’ll sit in a car in a few hours?”, Nicky asks her doubtful and cranes an eyebrow at the blonde.

Piper looks at her colleague for a second before she sighs and averts her gaze again. “I”, she stresses the pronoun, “will talk to her after work.”

“And you think that’s a good idea?”

Piper doesn’t answer the question. It’s more rhetorical than anything else anyway. Of course she doesn’t think that this is a good idea, but the only two other options would be either ignoring it or going ahead and trying to arrest Alex.

Neither of the two possibilities is of her liking.

“You know”, Nicky sighs after a long period of uncomfortable silence, “I think for the first time ever I really don’t enjoy your drama.”

 

.oOo.

 

Nicky suggested accompanying Piper a couple of times throughout the day, but she declined every single offer. This kind of drama wasn’t something she wanted to drag her colleague in.

She enters Alex’s apartment complex in Manhattan, hoping that she’s already back and not at some kind of business meeting she doesn’t want to think about anyway.

Slowly she climbs the stairs up to the right apartment and knocks at the door. Nothing happens for seconds, so she knocks again, louder. Then a third time.

She already wants to turn away again, as she hears a muffled voice telling her that she’s on the way from behind the door and then it is opened in a swift motion.

Green perplexed eyes stare at her, clearly not expecting Piper standing in front of her apartment, not really surprising because how should Piper know that she’s back already? She seems to be right out of the shower, her wet her drips and the bathrobe looks as if it was hastily thrown on.

Piper does her best not to think about the smooth, pale skin and toned body underneath and instead focuses on the green eyes, for once not hidden behind glasses and so exposing their whole emotion to the world around her.

“Piper?”, Alex’s husky voice asks her in confusion.

“Could we have that talk now?”, Piper decides to cut to the chase. She pondered the whole day how she would talk to Alex, what she would say, what she would ask, but in the end she came to no real solution except for the fact, that she can’t be distracted from it. So going straight to the point would probably be the best.

Alex sighs and turns her head for a moment, she glances into her dimly lit apartment and finally steps wordless aside, giving Piper the permission to enter with a short hand movement. “I’ll just change”, the brunette mutters and walks away, leaving Piper alone, “take a seat.”

The blonde steps further into the apartment and enters the living room, her gaze instantly locked at the large book collection again. A small blush creeps to her cheeks as she remembers the first night she spent here, how Alex had pressed her against the shelf, kissing her. How she wanted nothing but feel Alex, all of her.

She shakes her head at the memory, _no, no distractions._ Trying to calm herself down she steps closer to the table, takes her jacket off, hangs it across the back of a chair and then sits down. Absently she drums no explicit rhythm with her fingers on the wooden table until Alex joins her again.

She changed into casual slacks and a simple grey V-neck tee. Her hair is still wet, occasionally dripping some water on the shirt and hence darkening some small spots.

The brunette hesitates as she enters the room and sees Piper sitting there. Following her line of sight the blonde thinks to know why. Her gaze is firmly locked on her right hip, where her badge is still clipped to her belt. As well as her gun.

She didn’t bother taking one of the two off before leaving work, causing a huge discussion with her wild-haired colleague.

“You wanna take a _gun_ to her?”, Nicky asked her in disbelieve.

Piper looked down at her body, gazing at the black Sig tucked away in the holster and still clipped to her belt. She didn’t even notice that she left it there when she stood up and made herself ready to leave. “Why not?”, she simply asked then. Even though it wasn’t her initial intention to go to Alex armed, she didn’t catch the problem.

“Don’t you think it’ll send the wrong message?”

“Well, what’s the right message?”, Piper huffed and put on her jacket, leaving the gun and badge in place, untouched.

“How the fuck should I know? She’s your drug dealing girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend”, Piper grumbled ignoring the _drug dealing_ part all together and walked towards the door until her colleague blocked her path.

“Well whatever she is, leave the gun, blondie. It’ll do no good”, Nicky advised her.

The blonde cocked her head to the side, “I’m going to interrogate her, no? She’s a suspect, right? We always have to be armed and able to identify ourselves when in the field”, she argues simply because she’s annoyed.

In her head she now reasoned that maybe she needs the gun. If Alex is involved with drugs, the chances for her to have a weapon anywhere in her home are not really slim, right? It’s for her own protection. Not just because she didn’t want to give in to her colleague.

“Oh, she’s a suspect now? I didn’t catch her name in the files”, Nicky pointed to her own desk where one of the case related files lay opened on it, its contents scattered across the wooden surface, “must’ve missed it.”

Piper ignored the clear sarcasm and pushed past her colleague without a word, not in the mood for any discussion other than the one with Alex. Though that’s not really a conversation she longed for either.

“Just be careful”, Nicky sighed from behind.

 _She was right,_ Piper admits to herself as she sees the look in Alex’s eyes. She just should’ve left the gun and badge at the office instead of taking them with her. It’ll add more fuel to the fire then bearable.

“Listen, Pipes”, Alex suddenly breaks the silence and moves her eyes from the gun up to Piper’s, “I don’t think that…” She takes a deep breath and sighs, rubs her forehead. She’s clearly fighting some kind of inner conflict. “We shouldn’t continue this”, she finally says after her pause, “whatever we have.”

Piper stays quiet. She didn’t expect this, but it’s not that shocking either. It’s all just adding confirmation for her suspicion. Or rather said fear.

She can see that Alex isn’t really convinced of what she’s telling her, that she wants to say something else so badly, that she withholds something. But she continues down that road anyway, “I just can’t…”, she trails off again.

She comes up with excuses, vaguely and unreliable. Piper doesn’t even listen to all of it, she just waits for Alex to finish her daze like ramble and then says the words which will cause a long and suffering silence.

She didn’t plan to say them so directly or so early. She wanted to ask Alex more about her job, what she did in Chicago. She wanted to try to lure it out of Alex until she says it herself, either by accident or because she feels trapped.

But suddenly without really thinking about it the words just leave her mouth, shocking Alex, causing her to grow silent, to make something close to panic visible in her eyes. Causing to stop Piper’s breathing because this reaction, even though it’s not even two seconds long, is clear. It’s confirmation. It’s panic. It’s guilt.

“I know that you’re a drug dealer.”

_to be continued..._


	12. Heart I

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Day 11 05:57 PM

The first thing Alex does after entering her home is going into the bathroom. She needs a shower, warm and long.

Her wet clothes clung to her body because of a rainstorm which of course had to start the moment she left the airport. Even the short distance from the terminal to the taxi and then from the taxi to her apartment complex have been enough to get her soaked to the bone.

Ironically enough the rain seemed to cease the moment she entered her apartment, because as she gazes out of the bathroom window she can’t see rain falling from the sky, not a single drop is splashing against her window. Instead a few rays of winter’s sun pierce through the cloud ceiling. The weather clearly mocks her for unknown reasons.

Shivering she pries the clothes off and hangs them on the towel rack to let them dry. She then steps in the shower and lets the warm water tickle her skin.

She sighs highly pleased as the water doesn’t only wash away the cold but also all of her mind troubling thoughts, if only for the duration of the shower. She closes her eyes and welcomes the pure emptiness in her head.

That is until a flash of blonde hair enters her mind and causes her to snap the eyes open. She shakes her head and turns the shower off. She doesn’t want to think of her yet, she wants to have at least one evening without any worrying about her job, about Piper, about anything, just reading and going to bed, nothing more.

So she pushes the thought of Piper aside, far away and begins to dry her skin. A knock at her door lets her spin her head around, but she just sighs and decides to ignore it.

“One relaxed evening, is that too much to ask?”, she grumbles after a second and very much louder knock echoes through the apartment.

After the third knock she grabs her bathrobe, throws it on and steps out of the bathroom. “I’m coming, god!”, she calls heavily annoyed towards the front door.

She opens it in one swift move, ready to yell at whoever interrupts her peace. But when she sees the woman in front of her apartment all the words are caught in her throat.

When she finally finds her voice again all she can do is force out a very thin “Piper?”

“Could we have that talk now?”, the blonde asks her directly. So much for dealing with her on another day.

Alex sighs and turns away. She really doesn’t want to talk about anything with her right now, not as unprepared as she is. She still has absolutely no idea of what to say to her and how to act around her. All she can think about now is, _what if I let something slip?_ One wrong word and everything goes down.

But sending her away wouldn’t do anything good either, so she steps aside and invites her in. “I’ll just change”, she then mumbles and leaves the blonde behind. “Take a seat”, she calls from her bedroom as she puts on some more decent clothes than a simple bathrobe. She doesn’t bother drying her hair or wrapping it into a towel. Let the water drip on her clothes, that’s by far not her biggest problem right now.

She finds the blonde in the living room, drumming absently with her fingers on the table. But as soon as her eyes land on the right hip of Piper, Alex stops her approach.

She must’ve come here right after work, the DEA badge Alex touched herself is decently clipped to her belt, shoving the awful reality right into her face. Right next to a gun. She’s carrying a fucking gun.

Whenever she saw a gun in the past it was usually carried by Kubra or one of his men. And somebody always died not long after or at least got hurt. Badly. It’s a logical relation; guns and death. Normally she has no problem with seeing a gun though, it was never pointed at her before, but seeing the blonde with a gun causes a different reaction from her. She feels as if she’d stand in front of it, the barrel pointed at her, trapped with absolutely no way out.

When she senses the blue eyes on her, she snaps out of her momentarily frozen state and looks up to meet Piper’s gaze. Her face is nearly emotionless, only a hint of regret visible.

The question is; regret for what? Being here? Bringing a gun? Or for something she’s about to do? Is that why she has the badge and gun with her? Because she’s actually on the clock? Here to arrest her?

“Listen, Pipes”, Alex says without really realizing that she just spoke, her mouth just moves as a reaction to her rising panic, “I don’t think that…” A deep breath and sigh follow. _What do I say?_ , she asks herself rubbing her forehead. This isn’t how she planned it, the few things she planned anyway. This won’t work, this won’t end well. “We shouldn’t continue this”, she just says and then pauses for a second almost saying _relationship_ and instead settling for a “whatever we have.”

The blonde doesn’t react in any way. She doesn’t seem hurt, shocked or confused. She just continues to stare at her.

“I just can’t…”, Alex carries on after realizing that Piper isn’t going to talk. She begins to make up excuses, hastily put together in her mind, but they don’t even make a lot of sense in her own head and she knows that she sounds awfully unconvinced. When she finishes she looks at Piper with eyes that beg her to say something. Anything.

The blonde doesn’t move a single muscle besides her mouth as she calmly and emotionless begins to talk. “I know that you’re a drug dealer.”

With that everything around Alex is getting unimportant. Her eyes widen, her breathings stops, even her blood seems to freeze in her veins. She just stands there, stares at the blonde, does nothing, says nothing, thinks nothing.

When her brain complains about the missing oxygen and her vision darkens into a blurry mess in consequence, she forces her lungs to suck fresh air in. As soon as her brain is able to function again and bypasses the state of shock, nausea hits her.

She stumbles backwards before she turns around and rushes towards the bathroom. She drops down onto her knees with a loud thud so fast that she knows she’ll have bruises there tomorrow and then vomits her entire today’s meal.

Halfway through the progress she can hear footsteps coming closer and delicate hands pull her wet hair back. She feels a soothing touch and circular motions on her back.

After heaving every bit of her stomach’s contents Alex flushes the toilet, turns around and leans with her back against the tiled wall. As she looks up, she sees Piper holding a bottle of water she must’ve gotten from the kitchen before going after her.

Hesitating she takes it from her hands with a barely audible “thanks”, unscrews it and sips it to sooth her now irritated mucosae as well as to dispel the unpleasant taste in her mouth.

“I guess denying it would be useless know, what?”, Alex mumbles after a few minutes of averting Piper’s eyes and drinking the water. Wouldn’t she have had this particular reaction she could’ve negate Piper’s accusation, but she did. She did feel as if somebody knocked all the air out of her and she did throw up. It kind of equals a confession.

“Probably”, Piper sighs and sits down as well across from the brunette.

“Although I have to clarify here”, Alex says with a short and hollow laugh, trying and failing to make this situation lighter than it is, “technically I am not a dealer.” The blonde nods but stays silent, clearly not really any more content with the whole situation than Alex. “Well… Are you going to arrest me?”

“I don’t know”, Piper takes a deep breath and looks away before she closes her eyes, “I really don’t know.”

Alex nods a bit relieved to hear that, because although it isn’t a no, it clearly isn’t a yes either. Maybe there’s still a way out of this fucked up situation.

Upon thinking about it a thought enters her brain. A thought she already had when she saw the three letters on the jacket. “So, was it all part of a bigger plan?”, she asks the agent with an edge to her voice.

Confused Piper’s eyes instantly snap back to her, “what?”

“Seduce the drug dealer and then turn her in?”

The blonde gaze switches from confused to livid in a heartbeat. “First of all; _I_ didn’t seduce anybody”, she huffs and pushes herself off the wall to stand up, “and second off; fuck you!” She then simply walks away from her.

“Well, fuck you, too”, Alex calls after her and begins to stand up. Her legs shake a little bit under her weight due to the sudden food loss, but after a moment of steadying herself she feels able enough to move across the room and follow the blonde. She half expected her to be gone, stormed out of her apartment, but instead she stands in her living room, staring at the books once more. “Congratulations, you did well. Ready to take me in now?”, she adds fuel to the fire.

Piper doesn’t turn around. She shakes her head, not in denial though, it’s more a motion of disbelief. “Really, Al, fuck you”, she sighs.

“Great, we’re communicating”, Alex drawls sarcastically whereat Piper finally turns around and stares right into her eyes. Alex hasn’t seen her like that before; furious and hurt at the same time and she feels her own anger cease in an instant, if only for a fraction.

Then something happens what Alex didn’t expect. Piper takes a fast step forward and forcefully pushes her shoulders so that the brunette stumbles back and hits the wall, screaming another “fuck you!” at her. A shocked grunt escapes her lips and before she can even grasp what’s going on, Piper turns, grabs her jacket and leaves, heading for the front door.

“Oh no, you don’t just leave”, Alex mumbles and walks after her with long strides. She grabs her left arm as soon as it’s in her reach and Piper’s instincts as cop seem to kick in.

The blonde drops her jacket to the floor before she yanks her arm out of Alex’s hold, spins around, moves her right hand to her hip, draws her weapon from the holster and holds it up with both hands.

Alex instantly takes a step back in shock as she stares at the barrel. She automatically raises her hands above her head with widened eyes and her breathing increases rapidly. She always thought it would be a thug from another drug cartel or even from Kubra’s who’d be the first to ever point a gun at her. The notion of it being a cop never really entered her mind. Especially not the one right in front of her.

“Oh my god”, Piper whispers after seconds have gone by, suddenly all the anger in her eyes and voice is gone. Slowly she lowers her gun and moves her left hand up to run it through her hair and stops the motion midway, grabbing a fistful of her own blonde hair while some tears fill her eyes. “I’m sorry, Al. I’m so sorry.”

Not until the gun is safely tucked away in the holster again Alex dares to move. She lowers her hands, slows her breathing down to a normal speed and her muscles begin to relax while Piper is still chanting quiet apologies.

After pulling herself back together, Alex slowly approaches the blonde, touches her left arm and pulls it out of the hair. “It’s alright”, she says softly, her voice astonishingly steady. She expected it to be wavering, but she seems to be way calmer than she’d guessed.

After pushing the arm down completely she embraces the blonde and caresses her back in smooth motions, much similar to what Piper did earlier, just that this time nobody is vomiting. The “sorry”s fade away and Piper raises her arms to cling at the brunette, pulling herself closer into the hug and burying her face in the taller woman’s shoulder.

A short chuckle escapes Alex as she thinks about this. She’s the one to have a gun pointed at her and now stands here, comforting the person who did the gun pointing. Things between them seem to get only weirder.

“Come on”, Alex whispers and guides them back into the living room. She waits until Piper is seated and stares at the table in front of her before she leaves for the kitchen. She has the strong feeling that they will need some alcohol. At least she needs some, even though it’s a very bad idea since her stomach is pretty much empty.

She comes back with a bottle of wine, fills two glasses and begins to drink from her own whereat Piper just stares at hers and slowly slides it across the table’s surface. “It wasn’t a plan”, she suddenly whispers.

“I know”, Alex sighs. Deep down she didn’t think that the blonde would be capable of doing something like that anyway. But as soon as the thought entered her mind, her anger of the mere possibility took over. “Since when do you know, though?”, she asks out of curiosity.

“Really knowing? Not until you confirmed it”, Piper smileys sadly at the brunette and then begins to drink from the wine as well. “But the idea _popped_ into my head the day before yesterday. And suddenly it all made sense”

“How’d you guess?”, Alex is pretty sure that she didn’t say anything that could’ve hinted at her profession.

The blonde shrugs, “I don’t think I can tell you that.”

That’s basically the answer Alex expected, she probably would have to look into the files to find that out. Except if… “Am I in your files?”

Piper just looks at her for a moment, considering her answer before she shakes her head and mouths a silent no. Again Alex is more than relieved. That means that nothing of this is official, that Piper really didn’t plan to arrest her. At least not today.

“Is it my turn to ask questions now?”, Piper asks her quietly.

The brunette shifts uncomfortable in her seat, is this going to be some kind of interrogation? Even though this is nothing official, Piper is still an agent and she is still a criminal. Being questioned by her just feels that way… But she gestures for her to carry on with whatever is on her mind and drinks more of the wine, already feeling a bit of the alcohol due to her empty stomach.

“Do you know about the drug found at JFK?”, Piper asks in a tone that implies that she already thinks to know the answer and just wants to hear it from the brunette who sighs with a nod. “Did you have anything to do with it?”, now it sounds more like a plea. A plea for her to be wrong with this assumption.

But of course she isn’t, Piper had put the pieces together, Alex doesn’t know how she did it, but she did it. She hesitates for a moment, looks at the blonde with sorrowful eyes, practically affirming it before she even tries to explain herself, “I told you I’m an importer.”

“Well”, Piper sighs and leans back in her chair, “I expected something like art”, she looks around in the room and smiles a bit, “or books.”

“Sorry”, Alex smiles as well, happy that the situation seems to lighten up, at least something, but then Piper’s face darkens again as another thought seems to come to her mind. She turns back to Alex.

“So, did you kill Leila Smith?”

“God, no!”, Alex answers instantly, shocked that Piper even thinks that she could be capable of that. And then regrets all the more accusing her of being played by her earlier. This is how Piper must’ve felt. Betrayed. Resentful.

Relief washes over the agent’s face before she furrows her brow and tilts her head, “who did it, then?”

Alex sighs and turns away from the questioning look. She shakes her head in a curt motion, “I can’t tell you that.”

“But you know.”

She closes her eyes and nods. “Yes.” She remembers the cold breeze, the whimpers and sobs. How Leila looked at her with those pleading eyes. The cuts on her shivering arms. The loud sound of the gunshot. She remembers the blood, how it sprayed out of the head across the short pier and water, how it spread under the motionless body and melted the snow. “She didn’t deserve it”, she suddenly whispers and opens her eyes again to look back at the woman across from her.

“But it is what happens when you cross a drug cartel”, Piper finishes the unspoken truth. Alex agrees with a nod and with that unknowingly confirms Piper’s strong presumption of it being done by a drug cartel. “You know, you probably could help us”, Piper suggests in a low tone with hope in her voice.

But the brunette denies it instantly. “You just said yourself what happens if you cross certain people”, she sighs and drinks more of the wine, “and I’m not ready to feed the fishes.”

“You’d be protected”, the blonde tries to reason.

“From some people you can’t be protected, kid.”

“Just think about it”, Piper smiles sorrowful and empties her glass before she stands up and awkwardly waits a moment, staring out of the room. “I think I should go now.”

Alex nods agreeing although she wouldn’t mind if Piper stayed, if just for the company. But she understands it, this is much to deal with. She ushers her to the front door, on the way picking up the blonde’s jacket from the floor and handing it to her.

As Piper puts it on her gaze falls on the gun again and a cold shiver runs down her spine at the recent memory of having it pointed directly at her face. That is definitely something she doesn’t desire to repeat. Then she looks at the badge before it vanishes behind the thick jacket.

“What will you do now?”, she asks the agent after she already opened the front door and holds it open for Piper to step through.

As she stands outside of the apartment she turns around to answer her. “Going home and get some sleep.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She doesn’t really fear that the blonde will detain her. Not anytime soon anyway. If that would’ve been her intention, she would’ve done it today, of that Alex is pretty sure. But the thought is there of course.

“I know”, Piper answers and then leans in to claim the brunette’s lips in a soft and tender kiss. She missed this, Alex realizes closing her eyes. The soft lips of hers, the smooth skin, the touch. Way too soon for her liking Piper pulls back again, whispering a short “bye.”

When Alex opens her eyes she stares at nothing but darkness.

_to be continued..._


	13. Heart II

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 12 08:12 AM

Slowly Piper walks into the building. Some of her colleagues eye her curiously, she isn’t sure if it’s because she’s so early or because of her outer appearance. But frankly she doesn’t care either way. She ignores all the “good morning”s directed towards her and simply goes straight towards her office and sits down in her chair, not even thinking about getting her usual coffee from Mendoza.

Not until after leaving Alex last night Piper really thought about everything that happened in her apartment. About the conversations, the mutual insults. The gun. This fucking, stupid, fucking gun.

How could she be so fucking stupid and take the gun to Alex? She should’ve listened to Nicky, but she was too pissed about the whole situation to care about that at all.

She almost shot her. Her finger was on the trigger and she moved her thumb to the safety. The moment her sensitive skin brushed across it, she realized what she was doing there, who she was aiming at.

And the image of Alex standing across from her, hands raised in surrender, eyes widened in shock and fear directed at the barrel, burned itself right into her mind. Her breathing was frantic and her chest raised and lowered at an unsteady and way too fast rate.

Piper was frozen for seconds, she felt as if she was just observing the quiet scene from far, far away. When she finally lowered the gun again she shook as if she was the one who was standing at the wrong end of it. She heard herself apologizing over and over again without any control of the words. But she meant them, of course. Every single one of them was honest, guilty and so, so painful.

She didn’t really notice that Alex closed the distance between them until she felt her embrace tighten. She felt as if she was woken from a nightmarish dream, dizzy, weak and let herself guide back to the chair, all of her earlier plans to leave forgotten.

Her mind was empty, her fingers still twitched awkwardly as she avoided Alex’s eyes which she could feel studied her curiously. She focused on the glass of wine instead, the steady liquor had a weirdly calmingly effect on her. Or maybe it was the concern the brunette on the opposite of the table radiated, she couldn’t tell. But at one point she felt safe enough to talk, to broach the subject which infuriated her enough to pull the goddamn gun.

Although the talk was short it cleared a bit of Piper’s confusion about the whole topic and decisions. Because when Alex asked her if she was part of the files, Piper had to make a fast decision, a decision at which her heart and head argued loud enough that she feared Alex might hear it.

She should’ve said yes for the sake of her job. She just should’ve told her she is, and later make it official. But she couldn’t. She looked into those green eyes and she knew in that exact moment that she probably would never be able to arrest her.

Piper doesn’t know Alex role in the organization anyway, right? She didn’t carry the drugs herself. She didn’t kill Leila Smith. She didn’t confess her part of it. Officially Piper knows nothing. And how should she explain to Caputo or anybody why she suspects a woman who just happens to be at the airport at a certain time like hundreds and thousands of other people to have anything to do with the case?

This should make it all so very easy, but why doesn’t it feel like that?

Slowly Piper rubs her eyes as she slumps down in her chair. She still doesn’t know what she should do.

 

.oOo.

 

“You were right”, Piper suddenly mumbles the words she wanted to say to her colleague since she saw her coming into the office but feared her reaction.

Nicky dragged her to the cafeteria when she saw the emotionless and empty gaze of the blonde and, most importantly, absolutely no coffee anywhere on her own desk after entering the office for the first time this day.

The wild-haired woman lowers the newspaper she was currently reading and looks at her with a goofy smile, “cool.”

The blonde furrows her brow when she realizes that that’s all Nicky is about to say, “don’t you wanna know with what?”

“Why push?”, she asks smirking, puts the paper completely aside now and drinks her coffee. Piper smiles for a moment and forgets about everything that happened yesterday to admire her colleague’s easiness instead. “So”, Nicky eventually continues, “with what was I right as usual?”

Pushed back into the memories Piper’s face hardens again. “The weapon”, she shakes her head and looks down on the table between the two agents, “I shouldn’t have brought it.”

Nicky’s smirk falters and she leans forward, closer to the blonde. Her voice is small but firm, “what did you do?”

Piper inhales sharply before she lifts her gaze to her colleague and looks at her kind of apologetically and guilty, “I may have… aimed it at her?”

“Fucking hell, Chapman!”, Nicky hisses instantly and gives the blonde a slap in the back of her head, “are you fucking crazy?”

“I know, I know”, she whispers and rubs gently across the skin her colleague hit, knowing that she fully deserved that one.

“Did you shoot her?”

“No!”, she shrieks but then remembers that they’re in fact not alone in the cafeteria as a few heads turn towards her. She smiles with the fakest kind smile she can offer at this moment at them to reassure them that everything’s fine before she whispers to the other agent again, “no, god, no.”

Nicky sighs relieved and leans back in her chair again. She shakes her head, but her eyes are still fixed on the blonde in a reprimanding way, “next time you fucking listen to me, blondie!”

Piper nods frantically and lets her head fall into her own hands, mumbling very faint “so stupid”s to herself.

“What happened?”, Nicky asks after giving Piper a few seconds to calm down a bit. Piper tells her, of course. She tells her about the conversation, about Alex being part of the smuggling and drug cartel. She leaves out the vomiting and fear they both emitted, she doesn’t dare to speak about the gun incident any further and Nicky doesn’t push her, she doesn’t interrupt, she just listens. Not until Piper doesn’t speak any further, indicating that the history lesson is over, Nicky asks the most important question. “And what will you do now?”

Indeed, what will she do now? Piper asked this question to herself over and over again throughout the last night and today’s morning. She still doesn’t have any answer. “I don’t know”, she sighs and stares into the distance. “I don’t think I..”, she trails of and lets the various possibilities of how the sentence could end hovering in the air between the two agents. “What will _you_ do?”, she asks instead.

“Me?”, Nicky raises her brows in confusion, “what’s my business in any of this mess?”

“You know her. You know what she told me. You know as much as I do. You’re an agent as well.” Piper looks stricken, the fear of her colleague’s answer clearly visible on her face.

But Nicky just smiles, “I thought we already established that I don’t have any morals.” She drinks from her coffee again, “none of this is official, right? I know nothing. Blissful ignorance.”

“You’d actually just… ignore… all of it?”, Piper asks in disbelief, she didn’t expect that. She’s relieved, of course, since that means that Nicky won’t do anything as long as Piper doesn’t decide on legal consequences, but it surprises her.

Silence fills the air again as Nicky contemplates what to say next. She tilts her head, “do you love her?” The question is sudden and even though it is obviously a question the wild-haired woman sounds as if she already knows the answer.

“I… I”, Piper stutters and shakes her head. She never thought about that. It sounds like nonsense anyway. She knows Alex for less than a month after all, how can one speak of love after that short time?

“As far as I’m concerned”, Nicky continues when Piper doesn’t give her a real answer, “hot glasses has nothing to do with our case. We searched the mule. We found a dead mule. Now we search the mule’s murderer.”

“But”, Piper wants to start again, before Nicky cuts her off directly.

“Don’t talk, blondie, enjoy your coffee.” Piper does as told and drinks the black liquid without another word. “I won’t catch this bullet for you if everything collapses around you. But I will support your decision.”

“Thanks, Nicky”, the blonde smiles at her. But the question what she’ll do is still unanswered.

She keeps thinking about Nicky’s implied presumption. Does she love Alex? She remembers talking to Larry about someone she felt _intrigued by_. And she still does, but is there actually more?

Nicky was already right when she said that her feelings for her fiancé had changed. They changed a long time ago but she never really realized that until she stumbled across the brunette at the bar.

But what does that say about her feelings for the other woman? She barely knows her aside from that she’s well-read and intelligent, she’s funny though snarky at times, she’s astonishingly gentle.

A short chuckle escapes her when she realizes that Alex has something she always wished Larry would have, too: a steady and well payed job.

Oh, the bitter irony.

 

.oOo.

 

Newark, New Jersey  
Springfield/Belmont  
Day 12 02:28 PM

Her eyes shut at an unsteady rate throughout the debriefing. Every few seconds the lids close and snap back open before slowly closing again. She’s in this condition for over an hour now, barely awake enough to follow the conversation around her.

To say that she didn’t sleep well last night would be a total lie, because that would indicate that she slept at all. No, once Piper left, Alex’s body refused to rest. Her brain ran on full speed all night, calculating all the possibilities now that a DEA Agent knew of her profession. Her heart contributed the necessary frequency of beats.

Sometime around midnight she ate a very late dinner to finally fill her suddenly emptied stomach again. Her mind was dizzy from all the wine she drank throughout the evening after the blonde left her alone with her thoughts.

“You don’t seem very focused, Alex”, the deep voice with the Turkish accent causes her to snap her eyes open once more and raise her head. Kubra stands mere inches away from her and stares right at her with his grim face she’s seen often, too often.

She sits up straight and shakes her head a second before she forces herself to pay more attention to the conversation. She doesn’t know what they were just talking about, but she notices that both Taystee and Megan left the room. It was just her, Kubra, Fahri, Billy and Nasir sharing the room in the warehouse now. Did she really just pass out for a moment? “I didn’t get much sleep last night”, she offers as excuse.

“A certain blonde kept you busy?”, Billy smirks at her.

“Kind of”, she mumbles and rubs her eyes, doing everything she can to stop herself from thinking about last night again. Not here, not now.

“I need my people focused”, Kubra grits out after throwing an annoyed glance in Billy’s direction. “Can you focus, Alex?”, he sounds dangerously threatening, so the brunette doesn’t wait at all to close her mouth to a thin line and nod repeatedly. “Good.” He walks around the table and sits back down in his chair. “I expect another delivery in a week, to make up for our latest loss.” Alex flinches at the glance he gives her when he talks about her failure, she lowers her eyes again, but stays focused with her ears. “It costs a lot more because of the short notice, but thanks to Fahri our newest customer is willing to pay double.”

 _More like thanks to me_ , Alex almost says out loud, but can manage to hold the words back. Officially the business is done by Fahri, and that should suit her just fine. She doesn’t need the credits for that, but one day she could need his favor.

“After that”, Kubra continues firm, “you’re allowed to get back to work.”

“Thank you”, Alex nods and smiles enthusiastic even though she feels far from it. With everything going on right now, she isn’t sure if she can focus on work. No, she _knows_ she won’t be able to focus on work. But there is no way that she’ll tell Kubra that. He’d ask for a reason and she can’t give him anything plausible aside from the truth. And the truth would kill her. Literally. And if not her, it would kill Piper.

They carry on for a while, talking about future transports, about money and measures. Usually Alex would listen to all of it with excitement, but she can’t even fake it right now as her mind wanders back to Piper and last night.

All she can do now is wait, it’s Piper’s move now. All she can do is hope that Piper won’t do anything about it. But what are the odds for nothing to happen? She already got the vibe that the blonde loves her work and that she’s really damn good at it, otherwise she wouldn’t have drawn the connection to Alex, she’s sure of that. And after all they only know each other for a few weeks.

But the way the blonde acted yesterday tells her that she really doesn’t want to do what she’s supposed to do.

It doesn’t change anything though. In the end all what Alex can do is hope and wait. Wait and hope.

 

.oOo.

 

“So, why where you so absent minded back at the warehouse?”, Billy asks her as they settle down at a club in Manhattan.

Originally she just wanted to go back home and get some much needed sleep, but her friend dragged her along with him and so she sits here on the couch in one of the VIP lounges and lets the music blast her eardrums out of her head. “I fucked up”, she says before she can stop herself. It must be the tiredness, it makes her careless.

She fears Billy’s reaction to that, but he just laughs, “is that still about Leila? Girl, forget about that. It’s in the past and Kubra forgave you.”

Alex sighs in relief, he didn’t assume that she did another fuckup. A much worse one. “Strangely enough”, she says. It’s still surprising her how easy she got away with that whole issue.

“Let’s not talk about that heavy stuff”, Billy suggests and downs his Vodka, “how are things with blondie going?” Instantly Alex’s face hardens again, _fuck_. She can’t stop the reflex and Billy catches it out of the corner of his eye. He turns fully towards her and cranes an eyebrow. “Or is _she_ your fuck up?”

The brunette sucks her teeth and rubs her forehead.

“What did you do?”, he asks, his voice still full of concern, “you can tell me, you know that.”

Yes, normally she can tell him everything, not that she actually does that. She has boundaries and emotional stuff is usually nothing she talks about with anybody. And aside from this talk being very emotional it’s also a very high risk.

Even though she considers him her closest friend, can she actually trust him enough in order to tell him this story without the risk of him going to Kubra?

She looks in his brown eyes and finds her answer right there. Yes, she can.

“I found out about her job”, is all she offers at first. She’ll do this carefully, small steps, bit by bit.

“So? No dull office job like we thought?”

“Not… really”, she takes a deep breath before she dares to answer. She looks him straight in the eye and whispers the dangerous truth, “she’s a DEA Agent.”

His eyes widen instantly, and a breathless “fucking hell” is all he offers.

“You tell me.”

“Well”, he fumbles around with an empty glass on the table as he searches for something to say, “just cut her off then. Fast. Like now.”

“That’s what I planned”, Alex mumbles.

“But?”, he inquires fully aware that after something like that sentence a _but_ is always immediate. Alex doesn’t answer, she just stares at the dancefloor where the crowd is dancing. “She doesn’t know about you”, he says with a slight weaver in his voice, “does she?”

Now Alex turns her face to him, her gaze blank, emotionless, she just looks at him and that’s all he needs to get the silent answer.

“Fucking hell”, he says again, this time a bit louder, with a lot more panic in his voice.

“She found out yesterday.”

“And she actually told you that?!”

A single nod.

“Well, what will you do?”

“I have absolutely no idea”, she sighs and falls back into the couch. She closes her eyes and rubs them with the heels of her hands, “I’m so fucking stupid.”

“No objection”, he shakes his head and leans back as well, “you’re losing your touch.”

“Not helping.”

“You better fix this, Alex. When Kubra hears-“

“I know”, she cuts him right off, “believe me, you don’t have to tell me that.” But she’s also relieved. He doesn’t seem to plan on ratting her out, but instead he seems genuinely concerned. Maybe he can actually help her to get out of this mess with her lungs still breathing and her hands not shackled.

“Miss Vause?”, another voice suddenly cuts into their conversation and for a moment Alex feels panic rising in her body. Did someone spy on their talk?

When she opens the eyes she sees an apologetically smiling bouncer staring at her. “Yeah?”

“There’s a lady who asks if she may enter and talk to you. A certain Vee?”

Alex furrows her brow, what could Vee possibly want from her? She never met that woman before, they don’t have anything to do with each other aside from their mutual boss. She nods anyway, giving her approval.

He leaves and returns with a woman at his side only seconds later. The black woman standing now in front of her is probably only a few inches smaller than Alex herself, but with the big hair she tops her with easiness.

She has a wide grin on her face as she lifts her hand and waits for Alex to shake it. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Miss Vause.” Alex takes the hand and shakes it slowly, still not sure what to think about this sudden meeting, “I’m Vee.”

“I know”, is all she says. She has never even seen the woman before, but she saw pictures of her. The face has something engraving. Something… evil… “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, I just heard you were here right now and wanted to thank you.” She sits down on the couch opposite to the one Billy and Alex are seated. “For taking care of my girl.”

“No problem. She’s a very bright kid”, Alex offers and means it. She wouldn’t have guessed it by the way the girl spoke and goofed around when she first met her, but after a while it wasn’t hard to tell that she’s actually very intelligent.

“I heard about what happened at JFK”, Vee unexpectedly says, “must’ve been hard for you.”

“It was”, Alex mumbles, not sure what to think about the sudden change of subject.

“Anyway”, she says and stands up again, “like I said, I just wanted to thank you. I’ll be going again, business won’t wait, right?” And with that she’s gone again.

“What the hell was that about?”, Alex asks aloud. As she turns to Billy she is surprised to find a grim expression plastered on her friend’s face.

“Watch out for her, Alex. It’s well known that she wants to climb the ladder”, he says, his voice sounds like he’s trying to suppress a lot of anger, “actually it’s your job she wants. And she didn’t take it well when you didn’t have to face any punishment for Leila.”

_to be continued..._


	14. Heart III

New York, New York City  
Manhattan  
Day 12 11:03 PM

“I’d like to see her try”, is all Alex says. From what she heard about her Alex doesn’t like Vee very much. Meeting her mere seconds ago for just a few minutes didn’t change anything about it. That woman has a cold aura, a mischievous grin. Alex is sure she’d sell her own grandmother to get what she wants, but she doesn’t see her as a threat anyway.

She climbed the ladder herself over the years and made herself at least hard to replace for Kubra. The whole Leila issue only proved that further. If he truly had a worthy replacement for her, he would’ve used that opportunity to get rid of her. But he didn’t. He even seemed happy to finally have her back next week. Well, as happy as he ever seems anyway.

“Be careful what you wish for. Rumor has it she let her own son kill ‘cause he crossed her”, he turns to her and lowers his voice, his face is still grim but kind, “and you don’t need someone like that on your heels right now.” He downs the rest of his drink before he stands up, Alex doesn’t move. “You better deal with Piper fast. One person trying to get you is enough.”

“I don’t think she’s trying to get me”, Alex replies. She wants to believe it so bad. That somehow, like a miracle, the DEA Agent will actually ignore everything.

“I hope you’re right. I’d hate to see you arrested... or worse.”

“You won’t tell anybody, right?”, she asks him with a faint streak of fear in her voice. Unknowingly she stops breathing and her face is slowly flushing a pale red. She knows that telling him was a high as fuck risk, even though he’s the closest friend she ever had. But she just needed to tell somebody, she needed to hear herself saying it to someone else to truly get how deep in trouble she is.

He turns to the exit and stays silent for a few seconds before he drops his head and turns back to Alex, a small smile playing on his lips, “I don’t want to be the reason for a bullet in your head.” That’s a no, albeit a very harsh formulated no, and Alex begins to breathe again in relief. “But don’t expect me to cover for you, Alex. I don’t like bullets in _my_ head either.”

She releases a short chuckle and nods at him. He leaves her alone in the small area and she leans back into the couch once more, closes her eyes and begins to think about everything. She has to do something about Piper, but what?

And yes, there’s also this Vee woman… Although she really doesn’t see any threat coming from her, she doesn’t like the way the woman brushed the topic of her last delivery. So casually, unimportantly. Just as a matter of fact.

She is obviously planning something, anything. But first things first: dealing with Piper is more important. Alex looks at her watch and frowns. Not today anymore, though, she won’t knock at her door in the middle of the night. She’ll wait until tomorrow. Maybe she’ll even be able to think of something to do and say during the wait.

 

.oOo.

 

New York, New York City  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 13 04:08 PM

“Are you alright, Chapman?”, her chief asks her with slight concern in his voice. She avoids any eye contact with him.

Alright isn’t really the word she would use to describe her current state. Or her state these last days. Basically since Tricia dropped the bomb of Alex being a drug dealer.

“Yes, Sir”, she lies plainly. She rubs her sweaty, bandaged hands across her pants as she sits across from Caputo in one of the uncomfortable chairs. Some of the blood is still pouring through the cloth. She doesn’t really feel nervous but her body has all her usual nervous reactions anyway. Even this weird eye twitch which is starting to annoy her right now.

“You sure?”, he furrows his brow and waits until Piper finally looks into his eyes before he continues, “because we don’t need another incident like this.”

The incident he is talking about occurred about an hour ago. To say that it was something plain stupid on her part would be a huge understatement.

When she wanted to leave the office with Nicky to go to the cafeteria for some lunch she accidently pressed the wrong button in the elevator and didn’t notice until they stood on the ground floor instead of the fifth. Really, to who does something like that even happen?

They left the elevator busy with an unimportant conversation didn’t notice that they were on the wrong floor until they were already half across the hallway. The elevator behind them closed its doors again and drove back up to another floor as they realized that they were far from the fifth floor.

“What the-”, Nicky laughed, “man, you really have a way of doing things, Chapman.” Her colleague turned around, shaking her head amused and walked back to the elevator to press the button to call the elevator back down.

Just as Piper wanted to give Nicky a fitting comeback, she heard a woman yell. “You’re all not worthy of anything!” Confused Piper turned towards the strange voice and saw how two uniformed cops were trying to control a small woman with long brown hair.

She wore a long white gown and a silver garland on her head. While the officers tried to calm the woman down with small voices and stern expressions, she just kept yelling at them.

“What the heck is going on there?”, Piper asked and looked over to her colleague who turned her attention to the woman and two men as well.

“Hell, if I know”, Nicky mumbled.

The two didn’t even hear the elevator announce its arrival with a loud pinging or acknowledged that the doors were opening again. All they saw was that the woman suddenly broke away from the two officers and ran down the floor towards the agents.

“Hold her!”, one of the men yelled as he began to chase after her.

Piper didn’t think long about it as she stepped in the way of the woman, secured her stance and held up her hands to grab her as soon as she’s near her. “Don’t even think about it”, she threatened her, but the woman just moved her hand in one of the gown’s folds midway and pulled a wooden cross out with which she lunged at Piper.

The blonde screeched in shock and pain as the sharpened wood ripped the skin on her right palm open. For a second she just stared at the woman in confusion. She had dark circles under her eyes and her toothy grin was dirty, literally. Her teeth looked bad. It didn’t take long for Piper to assume that she stared at the face of a drug addict.

“Move out of the way, Amalekite!”, she hollered with a scratchy voice and lunged a second strike at Piper. This time the blonde dodged the blow and punched the extended arm away, causing the woman to drop the cross on the floor.

This would’ve been enough already, but for some reason Piper felt herself lunge at the woman. She set a firm blow directed at her head and followed the woman to the ground, smashing her fists down over and over and over again until Nicky could finally pry her off of her.

“Chapman, stop it!”, she yelled at her and grabbed her arms. She embraced Piper from behind and heaved her from the ground. She pressed the blonde’s arms down at her sides and did her best to keep the grip firm, “calm down.”

Slowly Piper’s breathing reduced. She didn’t even realize her heavy panting until it regulated again. She didn’t realize the blows she threw at the practically defenseless woman until she saw all the blood across her face.

She looked down at her own hands, slightly shaking, blood running down the knuckles, the skin split open at various points.

 _What was that?_ , she asked herself as she stared at the scene in front of her. She knew that she’s in the possession of a very daunting temper, but usually it made its appearance with a bad choice of words. Her actually getting violent like this was rare.

On the other hand it was only two days ago she pushed Alex harder than planned against the wall and pulled a gun because of her temper. Maybe it’s all just too much, way too much for her to handle.

“You alright again?”, she heard her colleague whisper into her ear and after nodding she felt Nicky’s hold on her lessen.

She moved her bloody hands up to her head to move a few strands of hair out of her face and smeared some of the blood on the skin in the process. Not that she really noticed.

“She alive?”, her voice broke slightly as she asked the question to the two officers who reached them by now and checked the state of the unconscious woman on the floor.

“Yeah, she is”, one of them answered, “you have a medic in here?” Nicky affirmed and called the medic in charge.

It didn’t take long for the bolding man to rush down to them. He ignored the woman on the floor as soon as he saw that Piper was hurt as well.

“What the fuck?”, she said as he stepped closer to her to inspect her hands, “take care of her first!”

“Whatever”, Dimaguiba huffed, turned around and examined the still unconscious’s bloody face. After checking her pulse and wiping most of the blood away he just shrugged, “call an ambulance.” Then he stood up again to turn back to Piper, “happy?”

She just sighed and held her hands towards him to let him examine them as well. He wiped off the blood and cleared the wounds before he wrapped a bandage across both hands, firmly securing the knuckles and the gash caused by the shiv.

When the ambulance came and the paramedics put her on a stretcher to roll her out of the building, the addict woke up again, mumbling a faint “I’m not crazy, I’m chosen” in between painful moans.

The words still echo in her head for whatever reason as she sits across from Caputo. Nicky is standing behind her at the far end of the room, probably observing her with pity.

“It won’t”, she promises him, “I’m just kinda… distracted lately… dealing with personal issues.”

“Well, then leave them home where they belong”, he says and fills out a report.

 _I wish I could_ , Piper thinks with a humorless silent chuckle and shakes her head, “I’ll do my best.”

“I hope so. Consider yourself suspended once your current case is closed”, he doesn’t look up at her to see her face change into a distressed expression. Just another problem on her ever growing trouble pile. “How’s that going by the way?”

“Nothing new”, she hears her colleague chime in from behind her as she doesn’t find words to answer this question herself, her thoughts instantly snapped back to Alex at the mention of the case.

“I see”, he sighs and takes his glasses off to rub the bridge of his nose properly, “take the rest of the day off. And you better come back as a model agent, Chapman.”

“Of course, Sir”, she nods at him and stands up to leave the room. Nicky follows suit and walks closely next to her to their mutual office to take their belongings.

“And you’re really alright?”, she asks after they arrive and close the door behind them. “Maybe you should just cede the case”, she suggests.

“No”, she answers instantly. She can’t do that. If she would do that someone’s going to arrest her sooner or later…

Wait, did she really just think that? Did she just think that she needs to keep the case in order to _protect_ Alex?

“No, I’ll handle it”, she mumbles, suppressing her thoughts once more, “somehow.”

“I hope you do, blondie.”

 

.oOo.

 

Roughly forty minutes later Piper puts the key into the keyhole of her house and as she turns it to unlock the door she notices that it is in fact not locked at all.

She frowns. Deeply. She did lock it when she left for work this morning, she’s one-hundred percent sure of that. Slowly, with as little noise as possible she pushes the door open and steps into the house.

Her hands move to her hip and draw the gun from the holster as she moves further in. “Hello?”, she calls into the house and raises the weapon. “If you’re a burglar, you better surrender right now!”, she yells and steps into her living room with the gun held high, “I had a bitch of a day and am holding a fucking gun!”

From the second floor she can hear wood creak which causes her to turn around again. She walks back to the hallway and looks up the stairs. “I know you’re there!”

“Could you please tuck the gun away, first?”, she hears a male voice call down and her shoulders relax instantly.

Because she knows this voice. She heard it for years, she mostly loved to hear it for years.

“Larry”, she sighs and indeed puts the gun back into the holster. Shortly later she sees him at the top of the stairs, staring down at her with a nervous smile.

When he sees that she’s no longer holding the gun he comes down and stops right before her, obviously not sure what to do. “Hey.”

And she’s not sure what to do either. When they haven’t seen each other for a few days before she usually flung herself into his arms, but she doesn’t feel this urge right now. Not at all. So she replies with a simple “hey” as well.

An awkward silence fills the room as they just stare at each other. That is until Larry’s eyes drop down to Piper’s hands, “oh my, what happened?” He instantly takes one of the bandaged hands and brushes with the thumb across the blood stained cloth.

Somehow the touch doesn’t feel right so Piper removes her hand out of his hold. “Oh, that’s nothing. Just part of the bitch of a day”, she answers lightly in a dreadful attempt of a joke.

“You sure?”, he asks her, his voice is laced with concern. Something she actually can’t hear anymore. All the time people ask her if she’s sure about something, as if she’s someone who isn’t able of the easiest choices.

“Yes”, she huffs at him and repeats it a bit softer after she sees Larry physically backing away. “Sorry, like I said-“

“Tough day”, he interrupts her, “yeah, I know.”

“So”, she clears her throat awkwardly, “you’re back?” He gives her a single nod. “How was it?”, she asks out of habit. She has to admit though that she doesn’t even remember where he went or why he went there. Aside from giving her space. Space she used gracefully to make every difficult situation in her life even worse.

“I actually got a job”, he replies with a beaming face and in an old reflex Piper smiles as well.

“That’s great”, she instantly moves forward to give him a hug.

“Yeah it is”, he mumbles as they hold each other for a few seconds. When he pulls away, she sees a bothered expression on his face though. “We should talk, Pipes.”

She frowns at him. She agrees, that’s not the problem, but it’s rare that he uses these words. Usually it was Piper who said the infamous phrase _we should talk_.

She asks him to give her just a minute to get slightly cozy and he leaves her to do so, taking a seat on the couch.

Piper meanwhile takes off her jacket and shoes and walks up to the den to store away the badge, ID and gun. Everything placed in the lowest drawer of her desk she locks it and tucks the key back into her DEA jacket.

For a moment she just stands there and remembers how after Alex stayed here overnight she found the key in the lock instead of the jacket. This is the first time she really thinks about it; if maybe the brunette took the key out of the jacket and opened the drawer with it. It wouldn’t surprise her.

She remembers how when she woke up at night Alex wasn’t in bed and when she called out for her she said that she used the bathroom. Coincidence? No, if Piper learned anything these last weeks, then it is that there is no such thing like coincidences.

But she’ll deal with that later, whenever she’s about to make a decision or deciding to talk to Alex again. Now it’s Larry she has to pay her rapt attention.

When she walks back to the living room she sees him sitting there with the same bothered face he had when she went to the upper floor.

“Did you make a decision?”, is the first thing he asks her when he notices her entering. But he doesn’t look at her. “Considering us”, he clarifies a second later.

Piper sighs. She didn’t really pay much attention to her and Larry’s relationship since he was gone. All her attention was focused on Alex. What she thought of Alex. What she felt for Alex. What she did with Alex.

Larry didn’t have any real part of her thoughts since he called her at work, telling her that he’ll be away for a few days.

“If you haven’t changed your mind, it’s okay”, he says with pure sadness, “really. It will make other things easier.”

At that Piper sits up, “what things?”

“For the job”, he continues and finally lifts his gaze to look at her, “I’d have to move to Washington.”

“I see”, is all she offers.

“I’d have to pack my things within a week. It’s all on a short notice”, he says and rubs his forehead, “so, for us-”

“I don’t think there is a future us”, Piper continues for him. She doesn’t say it as cold as the words themselves sound. Her voice is sorrowful and she really feels that way. Although she doesn’t feel the deep love for her fiancé anymore like she did once, she still doesn’t want to make him feel like that.

“I guessed that much”, he says after a moment of silence.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Just tell me…”, he looks away again, doesn’t seem to be able to look at her while asking the question, “is this about this other guy?”

“What other guy?”, she asks him confused.

“The one you felt… intrigued by.”

“Oh”, Piper just says. She doesn’t know what to clarify first. That it is not another guy but a woman or that there is indeed something, even though she doesn’t really know what exactly, between her and Alex.

But before she can form a reasonably reply the doorbell rings. She already wants to get up to answer it when Larry softly brushes against her should and forces her back down. “I’ll get it”, he says and stands up. He moves out of sight and Piper hears the door open.

“What it is?”, he asks confused but with a kind voice, indicating that he doesn’t know whoever rang the bell.

And when Piper hears the raspy voice answering, she freezes. _This_ , she thinks to herself, _is bad timing at its best_.

_to be continued..._


	15. Heart IV

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 13 05:17 PM

Alex worked out some things to say when Piper would open the door. One comeback for every possible reaction Piper might have. All the positives and the negatives.

Piper just asking her to come inside would be the easiest, nothing to say or to do for Alex. But it’s also the most unlikely possibility to happen.

The absolute worst-case scenario would be another violent action. Alex doesn’t think that there will be any more gun pointing at each other, but she isn’t sure if a punch or a hard shove down the short steps would be impossible as well.

However, she already decided that she won’t fight back if that happens. If she learned something about Piper from her small reactions all the time and especially from their talk that night it is not to push her when she’s already flared up. Neither literally nor with words. No, she would have to calm her down - somehow.

But Alex thinks, or better said hopes, that they’ll just have a small talk on the door sill in which she’ll tell her things like “I can’t sit this out” and “I need to know your thoughts.” She’ll tell her that she feels drawn to the blonde since she laid her eyes on her. In the first place she’ll say anything to get into the house. The second she’s inside and the door is closed behind her she’ll start to think of the rest.

So, yeah. Alex thought about a lot of things to say and do which might make the blonde listen to her. She thought she took every single factor into account. But there’s one thing she didn’t expect, one thing she has no plan for.

What if it isn’t Piper who answers the door?

“What is it?”, the man asks her with slight confusion in his voice. He has dark brown hair and brown eyes. His smile is faint and he seems stressed and distracted but tries to put up a kind face.

It takes her a short second to realize that she actually knows who he is. She remembers him from the pictures she’s seen inside the house, arm in arm with Piper in too many of them. He’s the fiancé.

This adds a whole new problem to the current situation. She can’t just walk away now that she actually had the guts to step into the lion’s den. She needs to talk things out with Piper if she doesn’t want to fear her coming to her apartment with an arrest warrant at any time. And she needs to do this fast if she doesn’t want to risk that Kubra gets wind of this.

But having a third, someone who probably doesn’t know anything of this situation or even her in the same house during that way too important talk is not really something recommendable.

“Hey”, she eventually begins with a short raise of her eyebrows and a huffing-like chuckle, “is Piper there?”

“And you are?”, he narrows his eyes.

The brunette sighs irritated. She hates nosy people who can’t just answer simple questions but have to know everything. Especially about her. Especially when she doesn’t have the time or energy for it. “Someone who needs to speak to Piper”, she answers grimly.

He just crosses his arms, his faint kind smile is gone by now, “I won’t let any stranger into my house.”

“Look”, Alex says, losing the little patience she had, she combs through her hair with her fingers and steps the last step up so that she’s on eye-level with him now. He visibly backs away as soon as she stepped up.

“Whoa, you’re tall.”

“I’ve been told”, she rolls her eyes.

Just as the fiancé wants to respond, a loud thud followed by a quiet curse echoes from inside the house, causing him to turn around instantly. “Pipes?”, he calls. Alex’s muscles twitch barely visible as she hears him calling her the same nickname she uses. He leans back a bit so that he can look into the living room, “you alright?”

“Yeah”, the blonde answers him and after making some other noises Alex can’t put appears in her field of view. She rubs her leg as if she just recently hurt it. Alex guesses that whatever caused the possible pain was the reason for the early thud.

They all just stand there in silence. Alex still on the outside, Larry on the door sill and Piper behind him in the hallway. Alex locks her eyes with Piper’s who stares at her with kind of pleading eyes. Alex isn’t sure what that means, but she guesses that they are pleading her to just go now. She won’t though, she won’t just turn around and walk away.

“So”, Larry asks after switching his gaze between Alex and Piper and causes both women to look at him now, “are you a colleague or something?”

“Yes”, Piper immediately takes advantage of the offered lie.

“Or something”, Alex answers simultaneously.

They lock their eyes again, Piper’s pleading gaze switched into a mild glare while Alex smirks at her. “Larry”, Piper looks at him now, “can you give us a minute?”

“Sure”, he answers but sounds far from being sure about it. He looks one last time back at Alex before he steps into the house and past Piper, not without mumbling a “call if you need me” to her. _Right_ , Alex scoffs inwardly, _as if she’d do anything. As if_ he _could stop her._ The blonde nods and touches his arm in a, in Alex minds, too intimate way.

Not that it’s surprising that the touch is a bit affectionate, with him being her fiancé and all. But it doesn’t change the fact that Alex doesn’t like seeing this. The small touch, the slight smile. But her eyes, her eyes are directed at Alex.

As soon as he’s out of sight, Piper steps closer to her and stops directly in front of Alex. She almost shuts the door behind her, so that it’ll muffle their voices.

“What do you want?”, Piper huffs. Alex doesn’t need to be a mentalist to know that she’s anything but pleased to see her standing here in front of her house.

“I kind of hoped for another greeting”, Alex jokes with a sultry voice and instantly snaps her mouth shut when she sees the blonde’s glare.

“Alex!”, she yells and instantly turns her head around, making sure that Larry doesn’t follow the annoyed outburst.

So much for not pushing Piper. “Sorry”, she offers and raises her hands in an apologetically way. She wants to move them forward and stroke Piper’s arms calmingly, but stops halfway and drops them instead, thinking that touching her right now might not help at all. And then she sees the bandaged hands with the reddish coloring. No, not just coloring. Blood. “What happened to your hands?”

Piper looked down at her hands as well and shrugs before she looks up again. “I beat the shit out of a meth head”, she answers casually in the same way someone else would say that they had pancakes for breakfast and Alex holds her breath for a second. She just beat someone up? Without having any other kind of bruise? No indication that she actually took a hit as well? And doesn’t seem to be affected by it in any way? “What do you want, Alex?”, the blonde asks her again.

Finally Alex lifts her gaze from the bandaged hands up to the blue eyes and tries to sound calm, “I just want to talk to you.”

Piper sighs and drops her head, shaking it slightly, “now is not really a good time.”

Alex agrees, but she doesn’t care, “come on, Pipes. We _need_ to talk about this. Really talk.” When Piper doesn’t answer directly, she moves closer and lowers her voice as if she doesn’t even want her to hear what she’s about to say, “I can’t just sit there and wait for you to arrest me.”

This causes Piper to raise her head, their faces are now mere inches away from each other. “You think I’ll do that?”, her voice breaks slightly as if she’s hurt by that assumption.

But really, what does she expect Alex to think? “I don’t know”, she huffs in a high-pitched whisper, “that’s the fucking problem.”

Piper raises her hands to her face and rubs gently across her skin, saying nothing, just breathing. After a while she runs them through her hair and looks back through the small door crack into the house.

Alex waits patiently, but her muscles twitch with anticipation. When Piper finally but slowly nods and turns her eyes back to Alex, she relaxes. “We’ll talk, Al. But… Not today. Not with _him_ here.”

That’s what she expected. She has so many things in her mind to say, things she thinks may convince her, but is it worth it? She’s right, with him here their talk wouldn’t be really open enough, there would be always this slight fear that he hears any of it. “Then when?”

“Can you wait a week?”

“A week”, Alex repeats in a mumble and sighs. A week can be a very long time when you’re not sure about what may happen. “I can try”, she stresses the word _try_ with a slight smirk, causing Piper to chuckle briefly. How she missed that. The sound of the blonde’s laughter, the look of her smile, all caused by her.

“We’ll figure this out… Somehow”, Piper says and Alex can tell that she sounds as hopeful as she feels herself. They’ll talk about it and they’ll find a solution. They both have no idea what to do, but they’ll find a way. Or so she hopes. “We’ll have to talk about more than that though.”

At Piper’s suddenly more harsh voice and words Alex cranes an eyebrow. “About what?”, she asks in confusion.

“The locked drawer in my den for instance”, the blonde answers with a serious face and for the tiniest second Alex freezes.

She tries hard not to show any reaction, but knows that her face has to betray her in some way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t”, Piper smiles smugly. Then she looks back into the house before she turns to Alex, leans forward and brushes her lips against hers again. Like the kiss at their last parting it’s just that, nothing more, nothing wild or passionate. Pure sensual. “Until next week, Al”, she whispers and steps back, her eyes never leaving Alex’s until the door is closed and breaks their contact.

 

.oOo.

 

After she closes the door, Piper just stands there for a moment and leans her head against the wall. She doesn’t understand this. She is never sure what to do about this situation when she thinks about it, but as soon as she looks at Alex all she can think about is how much she doesn’t want to lose her.

One week. She has given herself one week of time to come to a solution until she has to talk with her. If Alex actually waits the full week, which she honestly doubts. But in the end it doesn’t even matter. The important thing is, that it is not now. Not with Larry here.

_Larry._

She turns around and sees him standing there, or rather his head peeking out of the living room. His eyes are full of concern as he moves his whole body into the hallway now. “Are you alright?”

She nods slowly although she feels far from it and pushes herself past Larry into the living room where she plops down on the couch.

“Don’t lie to me”, he pleads her. Everyone else would’ve probably said it with an angry undertone, but he really just pleads her not to lie to him. “Who was that?”

And so she doesn’t lie. “Alex.” But of course she knows better than to tell him anything delicate.

“I got that much from you practically yelling at her”, he tries to sound jokingly, but Piper doesn’t catch on it. She just keeps staring at her feet while her mind is trying to work out what to do and what to say. “So, she’s _not_ a colleague of yours, I guess?”

“No”, it doesn’t surprise her that he did catch that lie also. Mostly because Alex decided to use the _or something_ instead of the thankfully offered loophole.

“Then who is she?”, he asks again as he realizes that Piper won’t clarify what her connection with Alex is if he doesn’t ask specifically for her to do so, “to you?”

 _To hell with it_ , Piper sighs and decides to just tell him. They’re basically over anyway with him moving away and with her believing in no future with him any longer. “The person I felt intrigued by”, she says as calm as possible with no sign of regret.

His face slowly turns from confusion into understanding, accompanied by a small nod, “I see…” He looks deeply hurt and it breaks her heart to be the cause of it. But there’s no way around. This has to be talked about for them to be truly done. After a short while of sulking his gaze changes back to confusion and he looks up to meet her eyes, “hold up. You’re gay now?”

Piper sighs. Out of everything, this is the one thing he decides to pick up? Not her feelings for another person, not her cheating on him, not her breaking up with him, but her having feelings for another _woman_? “You don’t just turn gay”, she explains annoyed, she never actually talked with him about her sexuality because there simply wasn’t need to do so, “you fall somewhere on a spectrum, like on a Kinsey scale.”

He nods but doesn’t seem to really understand what she means. “Well, then I guess our breakup is about her”, he concludes.

“Partly”, Piper admits and looks away from him again. Looking him into the eyes is harder than she expected it to be. She doesn’t want to hurt him, but in the end she already did and there is no going back.

She doesn’t see the tearful eyes of her now ex-fiancé, but she can practically hear them in his cracking voice. “Do you love her?”

“Larry…”, she sighs. Not because she doesn’t want to answer it, but because she doesn’t want him to talk about that and hurt himself within the progress.

“Do you love her?”, he repeats more forcefully.

Piper looks back up to him and whispers in an unsure voice, “I don’t know.”

He just nods repeatedly, stands up and turns away from her, but before Piper can see the first tears pouring down of his eyes, causing her vision to get blurry as well. “I’ll just go get…”, he begins before his voice gets interrupted by a faint sob, “this thing.”

“Larry”, she grabs his arm softly before he can walk away far enough and feels his skin trembling under her touch. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen”, she tells him truthfully. Nothing of this was ever her intention.

She can hear a very quiet “me neither” as Larry shrugs her hand off and walks out of the living room and upstairs.

 

.oOo.

 

Larry began packing up his things that same day. But she told him to at least stay at the house as long as it takes him to find an apartment in Washington so that he doesn’t have to stay in a hotel. She would go to a friend for the night so that they wouldn’t interfere with each other.

The first friend in her mind was Nicky of course, who had no problem with accepting Piper as an overnighter yet again.

Now Piper sits in the subway, a gym bag packed with some clothes for the next day as well as work related stuff slung over her shoulder. She sighs as she observes the night’s version of Queens rushing past her.

Arrived at her destination she gets off the train and stumbles along the streets to get to her colleague. The air is cold, so she presses the fabric of her jacket closer to her body and rubs her hands.

“Come in, Chapman!”, Nicky greets her already clad in pajamas after Piper knocked at her friend’s apartment door.

“Thanks for letting me stay here”, Piper smiles at her and enters the cozy apartment, instantly getting hit by a wave of warm air, “again.”

“No problem. Just make yourself comfortable in your usual space.”

And so she does. She’s walking straight into Nicky’s den and makes the bed couch ready as well as changes into pajamas as well. Afterwards she joins Nicky on the couch in her living room to stare mindlessly at the television screen.

“So”, Nicky begins after a short while of silence, “you two are ultimately done?”

“Yep”, Piper nods without showing any hint of her emotions about the topic, “no more Bloom-Chapman dream wedding.”

“Please let me be there when you tell your mother”, Nicky laughs at her.

“I’ll give you front row seats. Just make sure to make good pictures.”

 

.oOo.

 

Newark, New Jersey  
Springfield/Belmont  
Day 15 02:17 PM

Five days are left from the seven she promised to wait. She’s weirdly calm about it as she sits in a small café right in the neighborhood of the warehouse.

She begins to believe that she’s actually somewhat safe. Because Piper wants to talk. Piper wants to honestly talk. If she’d want to arrest her she’d just do it, but she doesn’t. She wants to talk.

The only thing she fears is that Piper brings the topic of her as an informant up again. Because she simply can’t do that. It’s not that she clings to the job too much to give it up, although she honestly loves it. No, it’s the fear of getting caught. It’s the fear of Kubra knowing.

Moles don’t just turn up dead. They suffer and then they vanish as if they would’ve never existed. That isn’t exactly the future she desires.

“Penny for your thoughts”, Billy interrupts her wandering mind and she snaps her head to the side where he sits. Where he actually sat with her for the last thirty minutes, which she totally forgot in this moment.

“Just admiring the landscape”, she says and gazes out of the window, where she can only see houses, streets and cars.

“Piper keeping you busy again?”, he asks her knowingly.

Alex instantly turns her head back to him and orders him to keep quiet about that topic, “I have it all under control.”

“I hope so.”

And with that the topic is over again, for the moment at least. Alex knows that he’ll talk about it sooner or later again, because he worries about her. He wants her to actually do the right thing, whatever that is in this situation.

“Is Piper the blonde chick?”, she suddenly hears another voice ask her and freezes. But no, there is no need to panic. Even if someone knows her name, no one knows their relation or who Piper actually is. They didn’t talk about that here.

Alex turns her head and sees Taystee making herself comfortable on the chair to her left.

“Which blonde chick?”, Billy asks her carefully while Alex is still not really able to formulate something rational.

“The persistent one that called Vause over and over.”

He seems to relax in the same moment Alex does, but neither of them says anything further.

“Anyway, Fahri wanted me to get you two back”, she stands up again and walks out of the café, not even waiting for them to follow.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 17 11:17 AM

Three days are left until the talk as Piper stands across from Larry who has all his stuff packed up and securely store away in the taxi.

“So, this is it then?”, he asks her, obviously unsure what else to say or do.

“I guess”, Piper mumbles and stands still for a second as well before she just moves forward to give him a hug. After a short while he returns it, basically clings to her.

She can feel him shaking slightly in her arms, but she doesn’t dare to actually acknowledge it, full aware that she’s the reason for the faint sobs he emits.

“You’re gonna do good”, she whispers, their embrace still tight, “in no time you’ll own that paper.”

He chuckles slightly as he pulls away and nods, a small smile on his face, “yeah, sure.”

They bid goodbye and just with that he is gone. After years, just like that, once and for all vanished out of her life.

_to be continued..._


	16. Fear I

Unknown Location  
Day X Unknown Time

Billows of smoke float through the air, coming from the glowing end of a cigar. At this point the burning tobacco is the only source of light in the stuffy room. It glows brighter for a few seconds as a pair of lips closes around the other end of the cigar and whiffs.

More smoke fills the air and as it finally reaches her nostrils, she instantly picks up on the familiar smell. She knows this particular cigar all too well. And there is only one person she knows who smokes it.

She wants to say something but realizes quickly that she’s not able to say anything. She can’t even move her mouth to get anything out of it besides some groggy grunts. It’s taped shut with silver duct tape.

The next thing she notices is that her arms and legs are taped as well, to the chair she’s sitting in to be precise. She can’t see it, but she feels it stuck to her skin and she can’t move her limbs any more than her lips.

She throws her head to the left. Then to the right. Some whimpers escape her sealed lips, sounding like a very faint, very foreign and far away whining.

“You’re awake”, the dark voice says and a shiver runs down her spine, “good.” The glowing cigar is moved down and a finger taps on it twice. Some pale ashes drop from it and disappear in the dark. “I was starting to worry.”

The fingers put the cigar away and she can hear how someone move in a leather chair before heavy steps are coming closer. Suddenly there’s a hand at the side of her head, causing her to flinch away, but the hand follows and covers her skin and hair and… Something liquid.

“That’s a nasty wound you got there”, he says, sounding deeply concerned and moves his hand away to grab a tissue of some sort and wipe the liquid off her face. Not until now she feels the pounding headache roaring from her forehead through her skull right into the tip of her spine.

“It’s a real shame”, he makes some tsk noises before he walks away again and pulls his own chair closer to hers. “But you know the rules”, he plops down on the leather and grabs his cigar again, whiffing it once more.

“Lights!”, he demands in a harsher voice directed towards some third person in the room and suddenly the dark vanishes and is replaced by blinding white.

She shuts her eyes to shield them from the sudden light, which only worsens the pounding in her head, and blinks a few times until they finally adjust to it. The first thing she sees is Kubra sitting only a meter in front of her, cigar in the left, a glass filled with whiskey in the right hand.

He examines her slowly with an unreadable expression on his face, sips at his whiskey and puts it down nearby a crystal ashtray on a small table next his chair. He sighs deeply, drags on his cigar again before stubbing it out.

She can hear the ashes crumble as the glow slowly vanishes completely. Traces of smoke rise from the butt and fill the air between the two before Kubra leans forward and chases it away with a nonchalant hand movement.

“Does the gag bother you?”, he asks her, his voice still laced with concern and she isn’t entirely sure if it’s real or just a front to make her feel somewhat safe. Not that she sees any way to feel like that, with her limbs being strapped to a char and all that. So mostly she just feels confused and doesn’t react, not sure about what answer he wants.

“It’s okay. We’re all civilized here. We’re a family. You can be honest with me”, he smiles at her, like he rarely does. It seems warm, but this time she’s very sure that it’s fake. Nothing about this man’s facial expression has ever been both, warm _and_ genuine. “Do you want it off?”

She just stares into his eyes for a moment, trying to find out whatever he plans to do with her. When the silence stretches on and becomes literally painfully to her with nothing to distract her from the throbbing pain in her skull and him just watching her, she finally nods as slow and calm as she can muster in this situation.

“I thought so”, he mumbles and leans closer to her. He carefully grips the duct tape, peels a tiny edge off and then, with one swift movement, rips the whole thing off her face, causing her to wince and hiss in pain.

She moves her mouth and jaw in order to straighten out the kinks in her muscles caused by the immobile position who knows how long it was fixed in. A joint pops loudly after another movement, bringing her to stop the movement and close her mouth again.

“Thank you”, she whispers after a while. Her own voice sounds foreign to her, and she finally notices her dry mouth and throat. It seems like she hasn’t been drinking anything in a while and as the realization becomes clearer, her thirst only grows. So instead of asking the important questions, she looks at him tired and asks with a raspier than usual voice for a glass of water.

“Sure, sure”, he nods eagerly and leans back in his chair, he gestures to someone out of her view and no minute later footsteps are closing in until a hand holds a glass of water with a straw in it in front of her face.

She leans forward and closes her lips around the straw, slowly sucking on it, savoring every single droplet of the cold water running down her throat.

When no water is left, the hand moves out of her view again, so her eyes move back to Kubra, who observes her calmly. “Can I trust you, Alex?”

She raises her eyebrows, her gaze never leaving Kubra. “Of course”, she answers with sincerity. She isn’t sure where this is going or why she is here, strapped to the chair to begin with, but decides that it’s probably best to play along with whatever Kubra is doing. Because whatever situation she is in, it can’t be a good one.

He furrows his brow, his voice is still calm, but the caring undertone vanished, “you know I don’t like being lied to.”

“Yes”, she answers. She didn’t lie, she would never betray Kubra. Granted, more out of fear than anything else, but still. She would never betray him and she didn’t.

“I like it even less than my people screwing up”, he elaborates.

“I know.”

“Then, tell me”, he leans forward again and clasps his hands together, “why did you lie to me?”

She just stares at him for a second, her eyes wide, her lower lip trembles slightly, “I - I didn’t!”

He just nods, obviously thinking about the answer. After a moment he tilts his head, “and you won’t lie to me today either?”

“No.”

“Okay.” He leans back again and picks another cigarette out of his shirt pocket. “Then I’ve got one simple question for you, Alex.” He cuts the end of the cigar, lights it and takes a drag. “What’s your deal with the DEA?”

In the blink of an eye the world around her seems to stop its existence. Her stomach turns and her hands turn cold. She can practically feel how her face turns even paler. “What?”, she barely croaks out. How does he know? No, he can’t know, right? This is a test. This must be a test.

“Please, Alex, it’s a simple question. You and the DEA, what’s the connection?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, she says and hopes that it sounds more confident outside of her head than inside.

“You said you wouldn’t lie to me”, Kubra merely laughs at her dryly and then continues in a much darker voice, a voice she knows. A voice he usually uses right before he decides to throw away other people’s lives, “was that a lie?”

She doesn’t answer, but instead turns her head away from him and bites her lower lip. She has no idea what to say at this point, _this isn’t good._

“A simpler question, then?”, he puts the cigar down and snaps with his fingers. Nasir walks from behind her towards Kubra and gives him a small black wallet before walking out of her view again. The wallet seems familiar to Alex, but she can’t place where she had seen it before.

Kubra opens the wallet and pulls something out of it, it looks like a card, an ID maybe. He tosses it across the short distance and it lands in Alex’s lap, the name and face printed on the card are staring up at her and she feels even worse than the time Piper told her she knew about her occupation. _No, no, no, this can’t be._

“Who is Piper Elizabeth Chapman?”

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Brooklyn  
Park Slope  
Day 17 12:53 PM

“God, you’re turning into your mother”, Nicky barks at her as she grabs the glass half filled with red wine from her friend’s hand. She then brushes past her into the house and goes straight to the couch to sit down.

Piper scrunches up her face, more because of the comment than the loss of alcohol as she closes the door and follows her colleague back inside, “don’t ever say that again!”

“Then don’t drink at fucking noon.”

“It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

Nicky looks at her for a moment, her expression of disbelieve slowly turning into understanding and finally agreement. She raises the glass in a mock toast and drinks it herself. “You’ve always had good taste in red wine”, she says while licking her lips approving.

“What happened to not drinking at noon?”, Piper asks her and crosses her arms as she looks frustrated down at her friend who writhes on the couch as if it would be her own. Well, Piper always told her to make herself at home. That’s what she gets for being the crazy-haired woman’s friend.

Nicky sighs happily after taking another sip and smiles up at the blonde, “it’s five o’clock somewhere, remember?”

Piper just rolls her eyes and walks over to a cabinet to grab a second glass. She heads to the kitchen, fills it as well and after a short second decides to just grab the whole bottle and bring it with her back to the living room. She sits down next to Nicky. “I really hate you sometimes.”

“Nah, you totally dig me, it’s all part of my charm.”

Piper snorts and shakes her head, she can’t help but smile though. Nicky’s right, in a way at least, she wouldn’t know what to do without her crazy colleague. Her sarcasm is often very relaxing and her advises can be truly helpful at times.

“But I guess you didn’t just call me to let me tell you how much you love me, right?”

“I need the company”, Piper admits, “I’ll go crazy otherwise.”

“Blondie, you already _are_ crazy.”

The blonde turns her head to Nicky and smiles at her, not saying another word.

“Is this about Vause? Or Bloom?”

“Both, I guess?”, Piper traces the rim of her glass with her index finger as she answers, “I mean, I don’t know. Larry’s gone right? For good. There’s nothing to think about him anymore.” Piper shrugs and looks around in the room. She frowns as she sees all the pictures of the happy times with Larry. She would have to go through it all eventually, would have to sort it all out. Not to mention that at one point she’ll have to go through all of her other stuff as well to find out what belongs to Larry and what to her. Or what she doesn’t want anyway.

“Vause, then.”

“It’s three more days.”

Nicky nods, she doesn’t need clarification, she knows what Piper is talking about. “You know what to say to her?”

Piper scoffs, “I don’t even know what to think about her. Or when I’m around her for that matter. My brain just seems to go full blank as soon as she’s concerned.”

“Well, you better find out. And if you want my advice, get her out of there. You don’t want her to be part of that when shit finally hits the fan”, she takes another gulp of the wine before adding a dry, “more than already, anyway.”

“That’s easier said than done.”

“Sometimes you have to do the hard work in order to get what you want.”

“Wow”, Piper stares at her and then begins to chuckle, “that coming from you sounds a bit hypocritical.”

Nicky frowns at that and tilts her head to the side, seemingly deep in thought, “only a bit? Man, and I tried so hard.”

Piper’s chuckling turns into a full laugh and she just wants to give her colleague a fitting answer as the door chimes. “What the…”, she scowls towards the entrance. Having no clue who that could be, she slowly stands up, discards her wine on the couch table and walks towards the front door.

As soon as she sees the blurry outline through the transparent parts of the door, she sighs heavily. _We should never speak about the devil_ , she thinks to herself as she closes the distance and calls back to Nicky, “you’ve got a camera on you?”

“I’ve got a mobile, why?”, she calls back from the next room.

“Keep it ready”, Piper half calls, half mumbles as she moves her hand to the doorknob and opens the door. In front of her stands, as straight as always with a hint of uppity her very own mother. “Mother”, she nods as friendly as she can in this situation. Which isn’t very friendly at all.

“Hello, darling.”

“What can I do for you?”, Piper asks her and doesn’t even bother to put up her usual fake smile when she sees her mother, not that the older Chapman really notices.

“Inviting me in, for starters”, Carol answers in a way that leaves no room for discussion of any sort, not that Piper expected anything else, it would’ve been too easy.

She simply steps aside and lets her mother walk past her. She closes the door behind and follows Carol into the living room. The older woman stops for a moment as she sees Nicky sitting on the couch, in one hand a glass with red wine, in the other a mobile phone and on her face one of her biggest smirks she has to offer.

“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you’re already drinking at this time, Nicole...”

“That coming from you is really lovely, considering the way the Chapman family handles alcohol traditionally.”

Nicky and Carol clashing is always a sight for sore eyes, if you’re one for endless and senseless banter, with one of them being sarcastic as hell, lacking any foundation of respect and the other being a… well… WASP.

Carol turns to face Piper again, “I never got how you can put up with _that_ woman.”

“That’s probably one more reason”, Nicky butts in from behind, her smirk still as wide as possible fixed on her face.

Piper just sighs. If there’s one thing she really can’t deal with right now, it’s her mother. But she doesn’t even get the chance to kick her out of her house in a friendly manner, because the next question only asks for causing more trouble, especially as she notices out of the corner of her eye how Nicky starts to record their conversation. “Where’s Larry?”

“Gone”, is all Piper says at first.

“Well, when does he come back? I have some great ideas for the wedding I want to discuss with the two of you.”

Piper stays quiet for a few seconds. Her first impulse is to tell her mother that she doesn’t want her to butt into her wedding anymore, but then she recalls that there actually isn’t any wedding to butt into anymore, so she just keeps silent.

And Nicky takes it as her chance to not only be present when Carol’s bubble about a dream wedding for her daughter bursts, but to be the one to blow it. “One can only hope for _never_.”

Carol turns around for a moment to stare at the wild-haired woman, before turning back to face her daughter, “what is she talking about?”

“We broke up”, the younger Chapman says with as few emotion as possible as she walks past her mother to sit down next to Nicky who has the camera lens firmly fixed on Carol. Piper can’t believe that her friend is actually recording this conversation. She should really stop making such jokes to her.

“What?”, Carol’s face is full of shock and empty of any understanding at all, “but why?” None of the younger women answer her, they just look at each other and then at Carol again. The woman seems to read the silence in a wrong way and gasps in more shock, “is it another woman?”

For Nicky that is all she needs to burst out in full laughter, dropping the phone to the floor and throwing her head back. Even small drops of tears escape her squeezed eyes.

Piper on the other hand just sighs, drops her head and pinches the bridge of her nose. _If you only knew how right you’re with that question_ , she thinks to herself.

“I don’t see how that is so funny, Nicole”, Carole says, deeply displeased with Nicky’s outburst of laughter.

The younger woman eventually ceases to laugh and wipes the last tears out of her face, a few lust chuckles escape her before she shakes her head, “we’ll come to that, eventually.”

“Mother”, Piper interrupts before any more harm is done by either of them, “can we _please_ not have this talk right now? He moved out barely two hours ago.”

There are a few seconds of silence, but then Carol nods and, surprising both, Piper and Nicky, agrees, “alright. I understand. I’ll visit you in a week again, but call me before, okay?”

“I promise”, Piper sighs, just happy that she’ll leave her alone for now. “Well, that was easier than planned”, Piper reflects after Carol left.

Nicky picks up her phone, stops the recording and then starts the short video. “And totally worth it”, she laughs.

 

.oOo.

 

The day of the talk is finally there when Caputo calls Piper’s office phone once more. “We’re on our way”, Piper says firmly and hangs up. She turns to her colleague in a swift motion, stands up and nudges her shoulder. “Work to do.”

“What?”

“They found another bag. This time with a suspect. They’re bringing him in right now”, she explains as she clips on her badge and puts on the blazer. She’s already moving out of the office when Nicky is still trying to get up from the way too cozy chair.

After a few seconds, the fast footsteps of her smaller colleague are closing in to her and they walk into the observation room of interrogation three. On the other side of the one-way mirror is nothing but an empty table and three empty chairs, as well as a camera recording every second applied to one corner, firmly directed towards the chair the suspect usually sits in.

It doesn’t take long until a cuffed young man is brought inside the room. He’s black, tall, with short hair and already looks scared. He can’t be older than eighteen, Piper guesses. “Something isn’t right”, Piper mumbles. A weird feeling settles in her stomach.

“You want in first?”, Nicky asks her.

“Nah, I give you the honor. I’d rather observe him for the beginning”, she replies as she studies the twitching muscles of the nervous guy.

Nicky nods and enters the interrogation room. She puts a small file down on the table. She sits down in front of the guy who nervously looks up to her before gazing back to the ground, fiddling with the cuffs around his wrists.

“Hello, there. I’m Nichols. You’d care to tell me your name?”, Nicky approaches him friendly, something she rarely does. This is usually more Piper’s play.

The boy looks up for a second again, “Trance.”

“Trance”, Nicky nods and taps the folder for a few times, “you know why you’re here?”

“The drugs?”, he answers in what sounds more like a question than anything else.

“Yeah, you could say that. Listen, we usually have two very simple ways this could go. One is where you tell us who you’re working for and we’ll help you. The second is where you decide to go down hard for whoever is in charge of you. The latter is only taken by the stupid people”, Nicky sighs and leans back in the chair, “but you don’t seem stupid to me.”

Trance shakes his head slowly. “I’m not”, he agrees mumbling, his fingers twitch uncontrolled.

“So… Can you give me a name?”, Nicky asks him straightforward this times and her answer is a single nod.

“How can you help me?”, he asks first though.

“We can get you someplace safe, lessen your sentence. We can give you a way out, Trance.”

He nods again. _This is easy_ , Piper thinks and scowls deeply as she sees how Trance is already about to tell them something. _I don’t like this_.

“Okay”, he takes a deep breath and looks up again, into Nicky’s eyes, into the camera and back into the eyes. “Alex Vause.”

Piper’s eyes widen instantly. _Alex Vause_ , she repeats in her head, _no, no, no._ She glances at the monitor, in the upper right corner the small red dot with the word _rec_ next to it is blinking rapidly. Her name is on tape. It is officially in the system now.

“No”, she whispers faintly, as she decides in mere milliseconds what she’s about to do. She storms out of the room towards her office where she grabs her jacket, gun and the car keys of her staff car.

She doesn’t even think about it, as she heads for the car, gets in and drives the short way to Alex’s apartment. She knows that she can’t let this happen. She has to warn her, she just has to. She won’t be able to drag her down, she simply can’t.

All the uncertainty, the consideration, wariness washed away in one small talk. It’s all gone now, everything’s gone and nothing but her will to keep Alex safe is left. At least she now knows exactly what to do. She’ll keep her safe, she’ll keep her out of it. Somehow.

Having arrived at the apartment complex, she practically jumps out of the car, slams the door behind her and somehow remembers to close it with the remote.

She storms inside and sprints to the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator right now. She heads for the door and screams for Alex as she pounds heavily on it, only to have it open when her skin touches the wood. It must have been slightly ajar already.

“Al?”, she calls once more as she steps inside the apartment. It’s dark and she doesn’t get an answer at all. She takes another step, calls a third time for her and when she hears the wooden floor creak behind her, she can’t turn fast enough before something smashes into her skull.

_to be continued..._


	17. Loyal I

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA New York Division  
Day 20 02:57 PM

To say that Nicky is surprised by the rapid agreement of cooperation would be an understatement. Usually the poor people who are dragged into the room fear their bosses or simply hate the police way too much to even consider any kind of cooperation. But Trance doesn’t need to be convinced. He agrees without long thinking about it, not even negotiating any further benefits for himself. Not even demanding a lawyer despite being offered one.

But when he betrays the first of his comrades to her, she’s even more surprised.

“Alex Vause.”

Nicky certainly didn’t expect this particular name to drop. Her very first instinct is to turn around and look in the mirror. Of course the only person she sees is herself, but she tries to put on her sternest gaze in hope that Piper would catch and understand it. _Don’t do anything stupid_ , she wants to scream at her, although she knows that it’s probably already too late.

Slowly she turns back to Trance who is still shaking slightly. “Are you sure about that name?”, she asks him with a small, but unintentionally menacing voice.

“Yes”, he nods slowly.

She sighs and tries to keep her frustration at bay. She promised Piper to have her back regarding this whole drug-dealing-girlfriend-issue, but now that the bomb finally drops, she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to be in the blast radius. _Damn those promises_ , she curses inwardly. “Do you have any evidence about her connection to this issue?”

“No”, he looks down towards the floor and whatever he’s going to say next doesn’t seem to be easy for him. He doesn’t seem to be eager to rat her out at all, but as he lifts his eyes again he does so anyway, “but to Leila Smith.”

She closes her eyes. That’s it, it is all going down. When she opens her eyes again, she knows that she immediately needs to speak to Piper. This is mostly her problem after all, _let her figure this crap out._ “Would you excuse me for a moment?”, she asks him and stands up, not even waiting for any reaction as she grabs the folder and heads out of the room back to where Piper is. Or better said was. “Shit!”, she shouts loudly as she sees nothing but the shining monitor.

She throws the files to the side and grabs her own hair in frustration. With fast steps she leaves the room and goes straight to the office she shares with the blonde, hoping to catch her there, but it’s empty as well. No Piper.

She storms out of the office and shouts with deep fury in her voice, “has anyone seen Chapman?!”

A few heads turn to her and shake, their eyes all wide. They rarely see her in this state, she’s usually sarcastic and cranky, makes stupid jokes, but almost never this enraged. But she doesn’t care for what they think about her right now. All she wants is to find her colleague and stop her before she does something beyond stupid and crazy.

“A house full of cops and nobody saw her?”, she mumbles loudly to herself. After a few seconds one of the rookies walks to her, clearing his throat. “I don’t have time for you now, Bayley”, she rejects him and rudely brushes past him.

“I - It's about Chapman”, he stammers, whereat she turns around and stares up at him. It’s astonishingly how frightened he seemed to be of her although he’s taller than her by several inches. “I… I -”

“Spit it out, greenhorn!”

“She ran past me”, he continues and takes a short breath, then points roughly to one side of the hallway, “to the parking.”

With a grunt Nicky starts running again, she barely dodges some of her colleagues who eye her suspiciously. She steps into the elevator and literally punches the button to the basement where the underground garage is located.

But the lot where their car is usually parked is empty. No car, no sign of Piper.

“Fucking hell”, Nicky mutters under her breath as she heads back upstairs. She pulls out her phone and dials her colleague’s number, but all she hears from the other end is the automatic voicemail announcement, telling her to leave a message after the beep. And so she does, “don’t do anything fucking stupid, you understand? Call me or I swear to god I’ll personally rip your throat out as soon as I see you again. Nicky out.”

There’s no question as to where Piper is headed right now and Nicky can’t do anything about it. She can’t follow her because she doesn’t know where Alex is living. She could find out, of course, but right now she has a prisoner to handle. Piper will have to wait.

“Would you care to tell me, why there’s a suspect _you_ are assigned to alone in interrogation three?”, Caputo nags at her as soon as she leaves the elevator again and wants to go back to Trance.

“That guy’s weird”, she decides to answer as no fit response occurs to her.

“How come?”

“He agreed to help us without any negotiation or consulting a lawyer”, she shakes her head and walks alongside her chief back to the interrogation room.

“Let’s not look the gift horse in the mouth, Nichols.” They enter the observation room and watch Trance through the one-way mirror. He is still twitching with nervousness and Caputo leans closer to the glass to eye him more thoroughly, “you’re right, that guy is weird.”

He turns to the computer in the corner and sits down in front of the desk, then he plays the recorded interrogation. He rubs his chin when the short video is finished. “Why’d you leave him after he told you about this Alex Vause?”

“To talk to Chapman”, she answers truthfully, “to discuss the next steps.”

“And where’s she now?”, he narrows his eyes.

Nicky hesitates for the tiniest seconds before she gives him a mumbled, “gathering information about her.” That will satisfy him for the moment and gives her hopefully enough time to get the blonde to answer her phone.

Caputo indeed merely nods and replays the recording, then he frowns, deeply, and pauses the video right before Trance mentions Leila Smith. He replays the last few seconds and Nicky can hear herself ask if he has any evidence. His frown deepens even more and his eyes are still glued to the screen as he talks to her, “what did you say Chapman is doing?”

“Gathering information about Alex Vause?”, Nicky responds unsure. He must have noticed something Nicky missed during the conversation.

“No”, he shakes his head and plays the part where she asks the question again. Her words “have any evidence about her connection to this” emit from the speakers. Caputo turns in his chair to look at Nicky and she isn’t sure if his face tells her that he’s confused about something or deeply unhappy with something. “You said _her_.”

“What?”, she asks him lost, not apprehending what he’s getting at.

“He didn’t even once say that this Vause person is a woman, yet you said _her_ ”, he brushes his mustache and leans back in his chair, “when I hear the name _Alex_ I sure as hell don’t think of a woman first.”

 _Fuck_ , is all Nicky’s magnificent mind is able to come up with.

“Well?”, he presses her as she keeps quiet.

“There was a woman in a bar we went once, she’s called Alex Vause”, Nicky tells him. Lies work best if you mix in a little bit of truth, after all. “Guess my brain made a connection.”

“Mh”, he sighs and looks into the next room before he nods, “not much, but worth checking out. You know where she lives?”

She shakes her head and runs her hand through her messy her, taking a deep breath. _This went amazingly well_ , her inner voice mumbles. “Chapman’s on that.”

“Ah, right”, he seems to recall her earlier lie and then points to Trance, “carry on with him, let him show you his evidence and all that crap and then help Chapman tracking this Vause person down.” He doesn’t even wait for Nicky to accept the orders, but simply stands up and leaves the room.

She just stands there for a second, looks in the direction Caputo left and pulls out her phone to dial Piper’s number yet again. But it’s still only the voicemail answering her call.

“Pull your fucking shit together, blondie. Caputo knows about Vause. Or, well, he knows she exists, nothing more right now. But I’ve got the feeling it won’t take long ‘til your tiny perfect bubble bursts and leaves nothing but chaos behind”, she takes a deep breath and watches Trance through the one-way glass again. “I’ll continue interrogating the boy now. When you’re not here by the time I’m finished, I’ll come to wherever Vause lives. She can be in Timbuktu by then for all I care, but you better be there if you don’t want me to hunt you down.”

She hangs up and takes another very deep breath before she steps back into the interrogation room with the twitching Trance in front of her. “Sorry for the wait”, she sighs and sits back down in front of him, she spreads the file on the table once more and pulls out a notebook and ballpoint pen.

Principally she’s asking him the basic questions now, his full name, his age, where he’s from. Basically anything to get to know his full identity. But he keeps quiet about his family and his job. He claims he has none.

Well, the latter she might believe, he was going to smuggle drugs, after all. Working for a drug cartel doesn’t really count as the typical nine to five job.

But no family? No. Everything in his facial expression tells her that he’s lying about that. The question is; why? Who is part of his family that he tries to hide them from the DEA?

He’s eagerly selling somebody out, somebody who’s probably ranked way higher than him, guessing by the age difference alone, although he’s obviously not happy to do that. He seems almost forced.

But when Nicky is probing about his family again, his very visible fear is restraining him. Is he afraid _of_ his family or _for_ his family?

“We won’t need to ask them anything, Trance, it’s just for the protocol”, she tries to assure him, but he shakes his head. He doesn’t care. He says they don’t have anything to do with this. He says it too often, if one decides to ask Nicky. She sighs and decides to drop the issue for now, though. “What about Alex Vause, then?”

“What about her?”, he asks, his voice is trembling by now. The boy is definitely afraid, but not of Nicky.

“You said, you’d have evidence”, the agent shifts her position slightly, “what kind?”

“Audio recordings.”

Nicky cranes a brow. “What’s on them?”

“She’s getting orders on one, and on the other she’s talking about how to pack drugs and a girl.”

Nicky tabs her pen on the table a few times. “So you’re actually giving me three names?” She hopes so. It’ll avert the main attention from Alex if there’re other’s as well. She just hopes that this girl isn’t Piper. That would be just her fucking luck.

Trance shakes his head and looks away for a second, as if trying to remember what to say now. “I don’t know the guy who’s giving her the orders. And the girl’s dead.”

Half relieved and half agitated Nicky’s eyebrows twitch at that, she had already forgotten that Trance talked about Leila Smith earlier. Slowly she leans forward. She doesn’t really come any closer to the boy, but it sends a threatening vibe anyway, “Leila Smith is this girl she talks about?”

He looks up and directly into her eyes before he answers, “yes.”

“What did she say about her?”

“That”, he trails off for a moment and takes a deep breath, his eyes dodge to the side again, avoiding any kind of contact with the agent, “whoever she’s talking to will end like her if mistakes are done.”

 _Fuck_ , is all her genius brain comes up with. Now they have a testimony and possible evidence to link Alex with a dead drug mule. This just keeps getting better and better. “I see.”

She should’ve stayed at home this morning. Call in sick, convince Lorna to get to her apartment and _nurse_ her back to health. It would’ve been a great day.

Instead she’s sitting across from a boy who has evidence which will probably not only get Piper’s drug dealing girlfriend, but also Piper herself in a hell lot of trouble. And not just the suspension kind of trouble where you have to listen to Caputo ramble for a few minutes before he sends you on leave for a few days or weeks.

No, this sounds more like the kind of trouble you’ll need a fucking lawyer if you don’t want to be sent to prison for treachery, abuse of power, passing on of sensitive information, and god only knows what else. The press is going to love this.

And even though Nicky sure as hell doesn’t want to have all of this happening to her friend and colleague, she has to play the good cop now if she doesn’t want to get into the line of fire as well.

“Where did you get those records from?”, she asks him after very long seconds of silence. His only answer is a shrug though, causing her to sigh in annoyance. “Well, where do you have them _now_?”

“My bag.”

“The one you got with you at the airport?” He nods as silent answer. “Why the fuck did you carry that with you?”, she inquires very confused. This doesn’t make any sense. Him _having_ those records is already very skewed, but by sheer chance carrying them with him when he’s getting busted and is going to rat Alex out just seems… off.

But she’ll worry about why all of this fits way too perfectly later, first she’s got an idiot of a blonde WASP to save from herself.

 

.oOo.

 

She’ll check the recordings later, they’re not running away, after all. Neither is Trance, that poor guy will be held in the house’s holding cell and probably gets something to eat right now.

She told Bayley to not better lose sight of him and if he asks for a lawyer, to assure him he’ll get one. Anything else should be arranged with her first, though.

So now she’ll have enough time to better find out where Alex lives and hope that Piper is there so that she can punch her straight in the face for getting Nicky dragged into this fucking dilemma.

She heads to her office and then rummages around her colleague’s desk, searching for an address or something. First her gaze drifts to the sticky note which is stuck to the rim of her monitor for days now. The name _Alex_ and a long number are written on it. A phone number without doubt.

Nicky hesitates for a moment, but right now it’s everything she has, since Piper yet again didn’t answer her damned phone. The wild-haired woman punches in the digits and starts the call.

It rings, for seconds and seconds until the voicemail turns on here, too. She decides against leaving a message, this would be dumb as fuck if the police should catch her and listen to a recording of a DEA agent when checking the phone. Explaining why her number will show up on a call list will be difficult enough.

Back to square one; the address.

Just running the name through a database would take forever and Nicky doesn’t have a picture of her to fasten the search at hand. But staring at the tidy table, she remembers some papers Piper showed her a little more than a week ago. She doesn’t remember what was written on them, but the blonde used them to find out that Alex was in Frankfurt at the same time as Leila was. Maybe that will help her find an address.

She goes through anything the table has to offer until she indeed stumbles across some reports of Alex Vause’s credit card bills, neatly hidden under a useless pile of old magazines, which Piper probably didn’t even read, in the lowest drawer.

There’s no address of course, but the credit card number will be enough for Nicky to get something. She takes the first paper and sits down at her own desk to dial the number of the bank the credit card is from.

After getting redirected to the user support, she asks for further information about their client Alex Vause. As usual the employee makes the common fuzz about not being able to release information about their customers.

“Listen, girl. This is an investigation in a homicide. You withholding this information basically equals obstruction of justice. I’ll give you my ID, my number, my everything to prove the legality of you giving me what I ask you for, you get that?”

A few seconds pass and then the woman agrees to swiftly fax her the needed information. Seven minutes later Nicky holds the address of Alex in her hands.

It isn’t really far away, but because Piper took the car early, Nicky has to walk the relatively short distance. She dons her jacket and quickly grabs her badge and gun, clipping both to her belt.

She walks out of the office and rapidly scans the hallway. She can’t risk running into Caputo now, but he’s nowhere to be seen. She hustles through the corridor and to the stairway. Taking the elevator would be too risky. He could be on it, whereas the stairway is always - _always_ \- empty.

She rushes down to the ground floor and out of the building into the cold winter’s air. In a slow jogging pace she walks the few blocks to the apartment complex Alex is supposed to be living in.

After abound twenty-seven minutes she thinks that she stares at the right building and enters. She runs up the stairway, leaping several stairs at a time, until she’s at the right floor.

Breathing a bit heavier than usual, she walks as calm as possible to the door of the apartment she hopes to find Piper in, only to be more than frustrated.

The door is closed and as she rings and knocks heavily against the wood, nobody is opening it for her. She turns her head to the side, looking if somebody is watching her before she pulls out her trusty lock-pick kit.

She picks the lock and slowly opens the door inch by inch with her left hand while her right rests on the handle of her gun.

The apartment is pitch-black. The lights are off and all the windows are covered by curtains or window shades, blocking every bit of natural light out. The only source of light is the hallway Nicky is still standing in.

She pulls her gun out and takes the first step inside. “Hello?”, she calls into the apartment, but only silence is the answer. She searches for a light switch and, after finding and actuating it, gasps at the sight before her.

A huge puddle of dark blood is spread there in the doorway to another room, glinting in the light. More traces of blood are on the doorframe and wall. A long metal shoehorn, sprinkled with the crimson fluid as well, is lying on the floor. A few pictures lie on the floor, the glass broken.

Nicky carefully walks around the traces of blood and tries to avoid the shattered glass as well and steps into the next room, a living room she guesses by the sheer size and furniture. Here is less blood, but even more demolition. Books are lying everywhere, as well as many other items. It looks like they were thrown off the walls and cupboards.

It takes no genius to conclude that a fight was going on here, the only question Nicky worries about, as she puts away her gung and begins to dial Caputo’s number, is who were the fighters. Alex and Piper? Someone else?

In the end, though, whoever was part of it, this isn’t going to end well for Piper or Nicky in _any_ way, but she has no choice but to notify her chief of this. Not when this blood _could_ be Piper’s.

“We’ve got a _huge_ problem, boss”, she says straight ahead as Caputo’s voice greets her on the phone. She sighs and her voice is dead serious, a very rare case, “and you ain’t gonna like it one bit.”

_to be continued..._


	18. Fear II

Unknown Location  
Day X Unknown Time

“Who is Piper Elizabeth Chapman?”, Kubra repeats his question as the seconds tick away. His voice is deeper, more threatening than before.

Alex twitches nervously, she’s never been in a situation even remotely comparable to this one. Yes, Kubra often yelled at her, he slapped her more than once and he always made sure to remind her of who’s running things. But he never went so far that Alex had to honestly fear for her life. Until now.

“I don’t know”, she croaks out and averts her eyes.

A sudden, sharp pain echoes through her skull as Kubra’s backhand lashes across her right cheek. Her head snaps to the side and she can’t stop a surprised yelp coming out of her.

“Don’t. Lie. To me!”, he shouts at her while standing up. He squares his shoulders and looks down at her with terrifying venom in his eyes. He lets out an exaggerated huff and steps to the side, out of Alex’s view.

A few seconds later he comes back, an ice cube in his hands. He presses the cold cube against the cheek he slapped.

This is his usual habit whenever he hit her. One moment he rages and the next he takes care of her or at least orders someone to take care of her. She never got why he’s doing that, but to be honest, right now she really doesn’t care either way.

The ice is soothing to her skin and doesn’t only drive the sharp sting of the slap away, but also softens the throbbing headache she feels since she woke up tied to this chair.

After a while he sits down and shakes his head making some tsk-ing noises. “What should I do with you, Alex?”

“Explaining what’s going on?”, she answers against her better judgement and already expects a second blow but it never comes. Kubra just starts laughing and then nods.

“Very well.” He takes the ice off her and tosses it into his almost empty glass. She can hear the cube crack loudly as it connects with the warmer liquor. He leans back in his chair, crosses his legs and folds his hands. “When Juri brought you to me he told me you weren’t completely honest with me. Of course I didn’t believe it at first. I said, _Alex? My good girl Alex who’s been my most eager and loyal employee since she’s eighteen?_ ”

He takes his cigar from the ashtray. It went out by now, so he lights it again before he puffs it once. “I laughed. Loud. I considered putting a bullet in his head for this very bad accusation. Then I was given advice to talk to Billy, because if someone knows you’re dirty, it’s him, right?”

Alex’s eyes snap up to meet Kubra’s instantly. “I thought I’d at least give it a shot. He told me he knows nothing. Rather convincing actually.” A flicker of relieve crosses the brunette’s features. She has to admit she didn’t expect that he’d actually lie for her if he was asked. But then Kubra leans forward and continues, “I can be fairly convincing as well, though.”

She doesn’t need to ask him what that means. She just closes her eyes and tries not to imagine what he could’ve done to him to get any information out of him.

“He was very stubborn indeed. But after a while he told me a nice fable of two princesses from different worlds falling in love. Romeo and Juliet, the remake. Heartbreaking, really.”

She drops her head and slowly opens her eyes again. She fixes them on her own feet, taped to the chair’s legs as she quietly asks a question she already knows the answer to, “is he alive?”

“Well, breathing might be quite the accomplishment for him now.”

Alex can feel something stab her heart. Billy is dead. Her best friend just… gone. And it’s her fucking fault. If she wouldn’t have told him he would be alive, he would still make his stupid jokes and drive around her mules instead of…

 _No_ , she shakes her head, _don’t think about it_. Although it’s hard, she needs to focus on something else. On some _one_ else. Her eyes move slightly and she gazes at her own lap, the ID is still laying there, the picture of Piper staring up at her.

Kubra seems to know everything anyway so there’s no point in continuing to play dumb, especially since there’s only one way to get to Piper’s personal ID. She raises her head and looks him directly in the eyes. She takes a deep breath, draws her eyebrows together and fills her voice with as much threatening power as she is able to. “Where is she?” It might carry little weight since she’s undoubtedly in the strategic worse position, but maybe some inner fire will impress Kubra.

“Ah, my dearest Alex”, Kubra actually dares to chuckle amused in this situation, a slight grin on his face, “and here I am, fearing completely reasonless you’d actually lost your spirit.”

“Fuck you”, she practically growls, “answer my question.”

His grin disappears again and seriousness returns to his facial expression, “you’re hardly in the position to demand anything, Alex.”

“Well, then just kill me”, she deadpans. After a second she begins to smirk, “you can’t, can you? You fear what I know. What she knows. That’s why you won’t just kill me but sit across from me and ask me stu-“

Yet again his hand connects with her face, her head snaps to the side again, but she’s too angry right now to even feel the pain. She just spits to the ground as she notices how her own blood fills her mouth and then turns her head back to Kubra.

Neither his nor her gaze is wavering, they stare each other right in the eye, battling in nonverbal conversation.

“You want to see her?”, he asks her and stands up, “fine.” He draws a small knife out of his pocket and kneels down in front of Alex. “You aren’t stupid enough to try something, are you?”

Of course she’s not, regardless of how much she’d love to punch him straight in the face right now, but she doesn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. Instead she just continues with fixing her gaze on Kubra’s eyes as he slowly cuts the tape which tied her limbs to the chair.

She moves her hands slowly, careful not to strain the joints after the longtime of stiffness and gently rubs her reddened wrists.

After Kubra takes a step back and offers her a hand she stands up, not taking his offer though. Now at her full height she still stares right into his eyes which are directly in front of her since he’s barely an inch taller than her.

“Fahri”, he says with his eyes still locked on Alex, “be so kind and guide Alex to our guest.”

Suddenly she feels a hand on her left upper arm and turns her head to the side to see Fahri standing next to her. _Was he here the whole time?_ , she asks herself but soon shakes her head. It doesn’t really matter anyway. But maybe, just maybe, it could work out in her advantage. “Well, lead the way”, she mumbles.

He just nods, no visible emotion on his face, turns around and begins to walk, with Alex right behind him. They leave the room and enter a long hallway. She can’t say if she’s ever been here before, but it’s not one of their usual hideouts or warehouses.

Since she was never part of the whole abduction, torture and murder kind of business the cartel is doing as well, it doesn’t even surprise her that she’s somewhere she’s never been before. But it sends a cold shiver down her spine.

“You really messed this one up”, Fahri says from the front as they walk along the hallway as soon as they’re out of earshot of anybody else.

“I can assure you, I didn’t plan on that”, she huffs and follows him. Her walk is slightly clumsy, her left leg hurts like hell for whatever reason, causing her to limp.

“That much is clear.” He suddenly stops and turns to a door to his left. He knocks on it, three times, and Alex can hear how somebody on the other side turns a key around and opens the lock before the door swings open. Fahri walks into the dimly lit room and he orders the man who was in here before to leave them alone. The man, she doesn’t recognize him, nods silently, goes away and walks past her.

Fahri takes the keys and walks out of the room again. “Five minutes, Alex”, he says and leans against the wall.

“Thank you”, she replies honestly and enters the room, Fahri instantly closes the door behind her, but she doesn’t even register as her gaze falls on the other figure in the room. And suddenly the whole memory of what happened in her apartment floods her mind again.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Day 20 03:15 PM

She stumbles forward and hits the doorframe with her forehead. A loud cry escapes her lips because of the shock and pain. She can barely stand as a second blow crashes into her head, causing her to fall to the side and down to the floor. In this exact moment her mobile phone rings, not that she has any chance to answer it right now.

She crawls into the living room, turns around and continues to crawl backwards until she bumps into the bookshelves with her back.

Still in the hallway and looking down at her stands a tall man with dark hair, a metal shoehorn stained with blood, _her_ blood, in his hands. He’s chewing on a toothpick and has a sadistic grin on his face.

But he didn’t think of one very important aspect. Piper has a gun. She swiftly moves her hand to it, draws it and shoots into his shoulder without hesitation.

Now it’s his turn to cry out in pain. He drops the shoehorn and clutches his shoulder. The blood is seeping out of the wound and pours down his body. He leans against the doorframe and furrows his brow angrily.

“You fucking bitch”, he snarls at her and tries to take a step forward, but Piper is pulling the trigger a second time. This time the bullet catches his knee.

His kneecap bursts and his leg yields to the suddenly way too heavy weight of his own body. He crashes down to his knees and breaths heavily while clutching his shoulder with one and his knee with the other hand. The blood is spreading uncontrollably under his twitching body.

Realizing that the man won’t be moving towards her anymore, Piper slowly lowers her gun and relaxes her muscles. Her body is still filled to the brim with adrenalin, but that doesn’t stop her head from aching as if… Well… As if somebody smashed a metal shoehorn into it twice.

She puts her gun down on the floor and moves her hands to where the pain is the worst. She can feel blood in her hair from the blows this guy landed on her. Furthermore there’s blood on her forehead and her left eyebrow seems to be split open, probably from when she fell against the doorframe.

She tries to control her breathing and calm herself down again before she slowly pushes herself back on her feet, she tears down a few books on the way up. She wants to step forward, but the dizziness in her head doesn’t even allow her one step. Instead she falls back against the shelves when suddenly a familiar female voice shouts. “What the fuck is going on there?”

 

.oOo.

 

“Is it not enough that you just come here unannounced, do you have to make so much noise?”, the brunette huffs annoyed as she exits her bathroom, drying her hair with a towel.

Entering the hallway she instantly stops dead in her tracks. Her eyes fall on the twitching form of Aydin who’s lying in his own blood, suffering a great deal of pain. “Aydin?”, she approaches him with clear shock in her voice.

The man turns his head towards her. “DEA found you”, his voice is very quiet and laced with pain when he answers, “called Juri… Downstairs.”

Her heart stops for a second and she walks the short distance to Aydin. Then she looks into her living room and her gaze instantly meets the blue eyes of a blonde DEA Agent, gripping her own bleeding head, leaning against the bookshelves. “Piper!”, she cries out and rushes to her, Aydin completely forgotten.

She cups her chin and softly strokes her face while examining the bloody wounds. Piper instantly moves one arm around the brunette to steady herself, but then pushes her away slightly. “You gotta go”, she breaths and then hisses in pain as Alex accidentally brushes across one of the wounds.

“What?”, she asks bewildered. If there’s someone who’s got to vanish real soon it’s Piper. Preferably before Juri reaches the apartment.

“We found evidence, Al”, is all Piper can say before another man steps into the room, a bulky giant of 6’9”. He has long brown hair, tied to a ponytail. He has rings on each of his fingers.

“DEA?”, he barks at Piper with a deep basso voice. His eyes drop to the badge clamped to Piper’s hip and then to the gun still lying on the floor. He actually begins to laugh at her. “You’ve got an ugly timing, ma’am.”

Alex turns around to face the gorilla who’s always accompanying Aydin in case he needs some extra muscle. And some extra muscle he has. “Juri, it’s alright”, she tries to convince him, “I’ve got it under control.”

“Under control?”, he laughs again and points at the broken form of Aydin still clutching his wounds, “you call that under control?”

“Just get him to the doc, I’ll take care of her”, she says stern.

The bulky man huffs, but nods, “if you say so.”

He turns around and kneels in front of Aydin, ready to lift him up, when he suddenly speaks up. “Don’t”, he looks up and then nods to where Alex and Piper are still standing, “she’s with her.”

The big man rises to his full height again and growls. He turns to Alex, who has clear fear written on her face. “You’re a fucking traitor, Vause?”

“No, no, no”, Alex shakes her head, but at the same moment positions herself protectively in front of Piper. The blonde makes a move to draw her gun, but then realizes that it’s not on her hip. She left it lying on the ground.

Juri takes a step closer and cracks his knuckles, “Kubra won’t be pleased.”

“Juri-”, she begins and raises her hands in a defensive manner, but the big man just clenches his right fist and strikes her. His rings connect with her temple.

This one specific blow was enough to make Alex fall to the ground. She crashes on her left knee, before her head hits the wooden floor as well. Her view slowly darkens, she feels completely numb as she lies there and can’t move a single muscle.

The noises she hears are muffled and she can barely observe how Piper crouches down to pick up her gun. The blonde jumps to the side and aims it at the bigger man, but not fast enough.

He whips it out of her hand and grips her arm. He pulls her forward and lashes out with the fist again, he hits her nose and then grasps her at the shoulders to throw her to the side.

She’s hurled at a cupboard and tries to hold onto it, but then slowly slides to the ground. Juri walks the short distance to her. “Goodnight”, he whispers with a big smile on his face as he clutches her neck and clamps the aorta in the blonde’s neck long enough to make her faint, but careful to not to kill her.

Then everything goes black.

 

.oOo.

 

Unknown Location  
Day X Unknown Time

A woman, there’s no doubt it’s Piper, hangs in the middle of the room, her hands cuffed together and on a long chain attached to the ceiling. Her head hangs between her shoulders, the blonde hair, a lot wilder than usual, covers her face. Her strong legs are without any tension, the feet touch the ground only with the toes. The whole body is hold by the chain on the wrists and Alex doesn’t even want to imagine the pain Piper has to feel in her arms and shoulders because of that.

“Pipes?”, she croaks out and takes a step closer, there is no response. Not even a twitching muscle, no sign of recognition.

Or life.

She stumbles closer until she can touch her and reaches out for her head to lift the face. Not until now she notices the blood. It’s everywhere. On her arms, in her hair. Her clothes are stained with it. And her face, her beautiful face, is swollen and littered with blue marks and red liquid. Her neck is heavily bruised from when Juri strangled her.

The blonde’s eyes are closed, the mouth slightly opened with some blood trickling out of it. Alex leans in closer and closer until she can finally hear and feel a very faint breathing.

Tears of relief stream down her own face. She’s breathing. She’s alive. She’s wounded badly, but alive.

“You will get out of here”, she whispers and gently strokes one bruised cheek. “I promise.” She leans in the short distance and places a soft kiss on the cracked, dry lips.

She leans back again and runs her hand through the blonde hair to tuck some streaks behind the ears. “I’m pretty sure your crazy friend is already turning New York upside down to find you.” A short chuckle escapes her as she remembers meeting Nicky at the bar and everything the wild-haired woman said to her that night. “It’s a shame she’s going to kill me for this.” She sighs and steps back as she can hear Fahri turn the key in the lock and smiles very faintly, the gaze fixed on Piper’s face.

She closes her eyes and imagines the blonde standing in front of her, no bruise, no blood. A huge smile on her face, her blue eyes opened wide, filled with joy. She imagines herself saying “I love you”, but as she opens her mouth, she stays quiet. No, she won’t say it here, not now, not like this. She’ll tell her when they’re out of here, when they’re safe.

_to be continued..._


	19. Loyal II

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Day 20 05:02 PM

“What the hell is going on here?”

That is the one question Nicky dreaded since she decided to call Caputo. She thought a lot about what to tell him as she waited in the bloodstained apartment, while hoping that this huge stain right on the threshold between hallway and living room doesn’t belong to her partner.

Piper.

Oh, how she’d love to punch her in the face right now, and scream “I told you so!” at her until the blonde is deaf and she herself hoarse. But that’s not going to help. Something very bad is going on, if the amount of blood in the apartment is anything to go by.

An hour ago she could at least sigh somewhat in relief, because a quick blood analysis by the forensics told them that the biggest splotch wasn’t even Piper’s blood type.

All in all there are three different blood types splattered in the rooms, but what really happened is hard to tell.

Sample A was only found on the threshold and the wall in the hallway on the opposite of the living room. Judging by the splashes on the wall and the amount of blood on the floor, its owner was shot while standing on the door sill.

Sample B was found multiple times across the apartment. First on the metal shoehorn, then on the doorframe. There are some small traces between the doorway and the huge bookshelves, where a small pool of blood has formed as well. Some of the books have smears of the blood on them, as well as the cupboard on the opposite side of the room. If Nicky has to guess, she’d say that somebody was hit with the shoehorn, and then maybe hauled against the doorframe, before that someone could crawl towards the shelves. How it got on the cupboard as well, she has no idea though.

Sample C is the rarest of the three, there’s only one small stain next to sample B at the bookshelves.

Therefore it’s safe to say that at least three people were present during whatever occurred here. And one of them was Piper. Her blood type matches the one of sample B, but it’s still possible that it isn’t hers after all. It would be foolish to hope for that, though.

“I don’t really know what to tell you”, Nicky mumbles, her eyes still fixed on what’s presumably Piper’s blood.

“Then start with why the fuck Chapman was pursuing a potential suspect - _alone_!”, he orders with fury in his voice. The fury is probably directed at everything and everyone right now. At Chapman, for going alone. At Nicky, for not stopping her in the first place. At himself, for not supervising his team better. And likely at the forensics as well, for taking too long to run all the tests.

And his anger won’t calm down upon what Nicky is going to tell him, she knows that. But she doesn’t really have a choice in what truth to tell and what truth to hide if she wants to find Piper alive and breathing.

“She wasn’t here to pursue a potential suspect”, Nicky mumbles barely audible to Caputo, who just gives her a silent order to continue with whatever she’s driving at. “She was here to talk to her lover.”

“Lover?”, Caputo repeats, his eyes widen, but then narrow as he draws a connection. “That’s how you knew Vause is a woman.”

“Well, I told you that Chapman’s on her”, Nicky remarks before she can stop herself, earning a death glare from her chief.

“I didn’t assume that you meant it quite so literally”, he brushes his mustache and walks up to the big bloodstain of sample B. “So, where is she?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, sir”, Nicky sighs and rubs her eyes. “But I don’t think Vause did this”, she says and points to the various pools of blood in the living room.

“Why not?”

“I met her. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who’s able to do this”, she answers truthfully. Alex seemed like someone who likes the danger and adrenaline, with a feral look in her eyes, but nothing that indicates a fondness of violence. Especially considering the look she got at the death threat if she ever happens to hurt the blonde. _Great, I might actually have to deliver on that._

“Did she seem like the kind of person who’d order a kid to carry drugs?”

Nicky swallows and keeps silent for a moment. She knows the truth, and she did tell Piper that she wouldn’t catch any bullets for her, but voicing it is hard nonetheless. “Maybe”, she mumbles.

“Maybe?”, he stretches, apparently not happy with such a vague answer and Nicky sighs deeply.

“I don’t think she’d actually order _kids_ to carry drugs, but…”, she trails of and runs a hand through her hair, the unspoken revelation that she actually _knows_ Alex orders people to carry drugs hanging in the air between them.

Caputo nods understanding, then shakes his head, huffs and does a couple of other gestures which indicate his very uncertain situation. After a while he fixes his eyes back on her. “I’ll deal with you later. Let’s focus on finding Chapman for now.”

Nicky nods thankfully at that, even though she’ll probably have a suspension to look forward to herself. But Caputo’s definitely right; all that matters in this moment is finding a certain stupid blonde colleague of hers.

 

.oOo.

 

Back at the office, the first thing Nicky does is marching straight to the interrogation room. Caputo is right behind her, doesn’t follow though as she bursts the doors open, and instead walks into the observation room next to it.

Nicky doesn’t say a word as she sees the startled and trembling form of Trance flinch at her entrance. She just slams the door shut, walks to the camera in one corner of the room and rips the cord out of it. The tiny red light vanishes and a smug, demon-like smile appears on Nicky’s face as she turns towards the boy, who seems a few shades paler now than before.

Caputo won’t stop her unless she seriously injures him, she knows that. If an agent goes missing, there really isn’t something like a rulebook anymore. It’s why most criminals rather bribe cops than kill them, and it proves that cops and criminals have very similar psychological profiles.

“Where is she?”, she asks him, her voice is low, but full of unspoken threats and he shrinks further back into the seat.

“Who?”

“Don’t play stupid, Trance”, she walks to the table and leans on it with her hands, her head moves closer to the boy in a slow, menacing manner. “Where did they bring her?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, he stutters and moves his eyes away from her. Nicky instantly reaches out and turns his head back forward, her grip isn’t particular hard, but unyielding.

“You let yourself caught and send us off to Vause where a team of your buddies is already waiting for us and think we don’t see the connection? Come on, boy, I’m not _that_ stupid.”

His eyes widen in sheer panic. “What?”, he screeches.

“So, where have they brought my partner?”

“I don’t know”, he stammers, his panic obviously rising. The nervous tremble is rising into a fearful quiver with any second passing by. “That wasn’t the plan”, he finally manages to choke out, shaking his head frantically until Nicky stops the movement once more.

The wild-haired agent frowns and leans a few inches back again, without losing a trace of threating aura though. “Then what was the plan?”

Trance doesn’t answer, so Nicky sits down in front of him and folds her hands on the table. “How old are you, kid? Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen? You’ve got lots of years to come”, she’s talking in a calm voice, it would be considered almost warm, if not for the cold words. “And believe me when I tell you that your decisions in this room, right at _this_ moment, will decide on whether the years will be full of happiness or sorrow.” She leans closer again and forces him to look into her eyes. “I will find her, with or without your help, sooner or later. But if she’s dead by then, I’ll make _you_ responsible for it. And I’ll give you a very graphic illustration on with how much blood loss a man of your health is able to survive for days.”

Nicky stands up and turns away, ready to leave the room until a rushed “wait” muttered by Trance causes her to stop. A small smirk plays on her face as she looks into the mirror and to where she assumes Caputo is standing. She turns to sit back down and leans into the back of the chair.

“Yes?”

“You have to believe me, I don’t have anything to do with your missing colleague”, he practically pleads her with wide eyes and Nicky is inclined to believe him.

“So what was your plan?”

“I was told to send you to Miss Vause, so that she’d be arrested.”

Nicky raises her eyebrows in confusion. “And you’re ready to go to prison for that?” He nods after a second of thought and Nicky shakes her head in disbelief. Whoever ordered him to do so must have an enormous influence on the kid. And a big hatred for Alex. “My partner wasn’t part of your plan?”

“No”, he denies with a shake of his head. “Why should she?”

Nicky doesn’t answer, she’s too much caught up in her own thoughts to even acknowledge the question to begin with. Whatever happened in the apartment seemed to be no more than a stupid coincidence. Although it’s a relief on the one hand, it also complicates things, because there’s no chance Trance would know where she’s now if it was never part of the plan. _I need another angle_ , she contemplates with a sigh.

“Who told you to do all this, Trance?”, she finally asks. Maybe the person who wanted to rat Alex out to begin with will lead her to Piper.

“I can’t”, he mumbles. “Moles don’t live long.”

“Rats neither”, Nicky reminds him, but it doesn’t really help to convince him, so she tries a different approach, far away from the threatening agent and closer to the good cop. “If you help now, I can protect you from them, Trance.”

“She’ll know I talked”, he shakes his head, then his voice turns into a whisper. “They have eyes. _Everywhere._ ”

“Nobody will know about this, Trance. It’s just you and me. There’s no camera recording this”, she gestures to the camera with the cord hanging loosely out of the wall. “No one listening into this”, she gestures to the mirror behind her, although she knows that that isn’t really true. But she doubts very highly that Caputo is one of the moles in their department. That man is practically incorruptible with an almost sickeningly helper syndrome that even puts Piper’s morals to shame - Especially now that she has found herself a drug dealing girlfriend.

“This agent; my partner”, she begins when he stays quiet for too long. “She my best fucking friend, and there was so much blood in the apartment”, she doesn’t need to tell him that most of it wasn’t actually hers, but probably of one of the attackers, after all. “If you keep silent, she’ll die for sure. Do you really wanna be responsible for that?”

A moment of contemplating thoughts later he shakes his head.

“Then help me. I’ll protect you, I promise.”

“Vee”, he sighs and scratches nervously the back of his hand. “Yvonne Parker. She planned this.”

A short nod and a thankful smile on her face seem to reassure Trance a bit. “Do you know why?”

“She wants to take her place. It’s no big secret, really.”

“And do you know who she’s working for? And Vause?”

He shakes his head and Nicky believes him. “Thank you, Trance.” She stands up and moves to leave yet again.

“May I have a lawyer now?”

A small chuckle actually escapes her lips. It seems like the Vee person is the one who told him not to take a lawyer to begin with. “Sure, do you have a lawyer you really trust?” When he shakes his head without hesitation, she gives a short sigh. “I’ll see what I can do.” And with those words he leaves him alone in the room.

 

.oOo.

 

“I heard that name before”, Caputo says when he falls into step with Nicky. “Parker is the leader of a relatively small ring, was in prison once, but I never thought she’d be part of something bigger.”

“Apparently she is.”

Caputo nods and follows her into Nicky and Piper’s office. Nicky has to say that she feels a tiny bit uneasy to have the chief breathing down her neck, but on the other hand he’s probably the best other agent around right now, even though his field days are long over. “Do you know which role Vause took in this organization?”

“Import”, is all Nicky answers with a sigh as she types the name _Yvonne Parker_ into the search engines of various databases, hoping to find a somewhat solid address.

“So, Leila Smith-”

“She didn’t do it”, Nicky interrupts him before he’s able to finalize even thinking the sentence.

“You sure?”

“Chapman is”, she reasons and recalls the look in her eyes when she told her in the cafeteria about their talk turned almost shooting incident a week ago. “That’s enough for me.”

“She slept with the drug importer; hardly a reliable source.”

With her eyes fixed on the search engine, she decides to break the silence with something that might actually help Piper after she’s found. “She was planning to convince her to testify.”

“If she’d done this last week we’d be better off now”, Caputo dismisses Nicky’s offered argument. But before she can make a remark, the speakers of her computer make a beeping noise and a window flashes on the screen of the monitor.

“We’ve actually got an address”, she smiles, stands up, and moves to the door, not even turning to look if the chief follows her down the hall.

After Caputo made a short call to get a search warrant for Vee’s apartment, the car ride is filled with a very tense silence, but Nicky tries not to let it get to her. She has to focus on getting Piper back to safety now.

Then, shortly before they close in to the apartment where Vee lives, Nicky realizes something. “What exactly are we going to say to her?”, she asks Caputo. She fears that if they ask her about Vause she’ll know that the boy ratted her out.

“It doesn’t really matter”, he says, parks the car and steps out. “Just look at her threateningly and let me do the talking.”

“Will do”, Nicky mutters, although she doesn’t usually like the sheer background existence.

They step up to the apartment and knock at the door. After a moment a tall, black woman with big hair and cold eyes opens. “Miss Parker?”, Caputo begins in a neutral voice.

“Yes?”

“Agent Caputo, Agent Nichols”, he introduces them with a short flash of his badge. “We have a couple of questions, may we come in?”

“No offense, but actually, no”, Vee declines and broads her shoulders, making sure to block every inch of the entrance.

“Ah, that’s no problem actually, because, see”, he rummages in the inside of his jacket and pulls out a letter which he hands to her. “We’ve got a warrant.” Upon a small whistle from his lips, a couple of other agents step up the stairs and move into the apartment.

“What, why?”, Vee asks incredulously as she skims the paper clutched in her hands.

“Some people don’t like being ratted out. They tend to sing”, with a smug smile Caputo walks past her as well.

Nicky stands behind though and watches how another agent cuffs the taller woman, who keeps muttering “that fucking bitch” beneath her breath.

“I want this whole damn place searched”, Nicky can hear Caputo order his agents around before he moves back to them. “Now, about those questions.”

“I’m not going to say anything without a lawyer”, Vee blocks him off instantly.

“Figured as much”, Caputo nods his head and tells the agent to bring her downstairs and into one of the cars.

“And that was your fucking plan?”, Nicky asks him furious. “How’s her _not_ talking going to help us find Chapman?”

“Don’t worry, Nichols, she will talk. But we would’ve just wasted our time with her before she’d spoken to her lawyer. Right now our biggest hope is that something in here helps us find Chapman. An address, a meeting place, anything. Then we get back to the office and talk with her, offer her a deal, if needed.”

Nicky just huffs and shakes her head doubtfully, that’s when she gets an idea. “Tricia”, she mutters and smacks her forehead. Of course, she was the one to tell them about Vause’s job in the first place and already _is_ their informant. “I’ve gotta go”, she says without waiting for a response and completely ignoring the shouts of the chief.

She runs down the stairs and to the next subway station, to get to Queens, she only hopes that the girl will be talking without the need of much convincing.

 

.oOo.

 

Five hours after Piper’s gone missing, Nicky stands in front of the closed store in Astora, knocking frantically at the glass door.

“Who the fuck is that?”, she can hear Red scream from inside the store, after a moment she sees her form stepping closer, clear surprise written all over her face. “Nicky?”, she asks after opening the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Where’s Tricia?”

“Back in the storage, why?”

“I need to ask her some questions”, Nicky answers briskly and rushes past the Russian, who follows her bewildered.

“What’s wrong, Nicky?”

“Blondie’s missing”, she mumbles the response, effectively quieting Red with it, and steps into the small storage room filled with shelves. “Tricia?”, she calls into the room, it sounds more like an order to come out than a question if she’s there.

“Yeah?”, the young girl comes out from behind one of the shelves and rubs some dirt off her hands with an old dishtowel.

“You need to tell me _everything_ you know about Vause.”

“Whoa, what’s with the straight to business stuff here, not even a hello?”, Tricia complains in a mock-hurting voice, moving her hand to her chest as if the agent’s behavior is hurting her.

“I don’t have time for that shit”, Nicky snaps at her, something she rarely does. Normally it’s Piper who loses her cool with the young informant. Or really, in general.

Shocked, Tricia stumbles back and stutters a short answer. “I… I don’t really know anything about her.”

“Then _how_ do you know about her?”

“A friend. She’s been working with her. Or… for her.”

“Who?”

“She’s called Taystee”, Tricia shrugs and looks at her apologetically. “I don’t know her real name.”

“Fuck”, Nicky mutters and shakes her head in defeat.

“What’s going on, anyway?”

“Chapman’s been abducted”, Nicky explains. “I think the people Vause works for did it.” After a moment of consideration she adds “and I think she might’ve been their target, too.”

“Shit”, Tricia breaths, truly shocked for the second time this evening. Nicky knows she isn’t particularly fond of the other blonde, but that she’s aware that her rescue from the streets and protection from the law enforcement was as much Piper’s as Nicky’s doing.

“Amen to that.”

_to be continued..._


	20. Fear III

Unknown Location  
Day X Unknown Time

Sometimes there’s this short moment during the wake up you feel disoriented, when you’re still half asleep, caught in a dream world and don’t realize that you’re lying safely in your bed, wrapped into the warm, soft sheets.

It often happens when you just dreamt about something beautiful and simply don’t _want_ to wake up, because the dream is so much more delightful than the grey, triste reality. The other possibility for this to happen is when you just had a nightmare and you still see the monsters in your head. When you can’t move, can’t speak, can’t breathe. In extreme cases this is called sleep paralysis, a true bitch of psychological tricks your brain is capable of.

The latter is what Piper feels right now, though as the sharp metal tors into the skin of her wrists she knows exactly that it really isn’t just a dream, but the cruel reality.

She can hardly move her fingers and her grasp around the chain is too weak to even yank on it. Her shoulders ache as if somebody had been pulling her arms for hours and hours. There’s also a loud pounding in her head, knocking against the inner walls of her skull with every beat of her heart.

When she opens her eyes it changes absolutely nothing about what she sees, there’s only darkness around her. The only sound she hears is her own unsteady breathing, and when she opens her mouth, she notices how dry her lips are.

She runs her tongue across the thin skin; it’s cracked open in various places and tastes of salt and iron. No, of sweat and blood. _Her_ sweat and blood. And with that the images of what happened flash in her mind like a sick nightmare.

The blood splattering around the apartment. The sound of bones cracking under fists and bursting because of the bullets’ impact fill her ears and suddenly she finds herself screaming as if reliving all of the pain she felt in the fight again.

It’s the last drop to get her fully awake and suddenly she feels strong enough to move her arms despite the pain it sends down her entire spine. She yanks at the chain as she finds her footing on the ground and straightens her legs.

Her muscles twitch and wobble under her own weight, but it doesn’t stop her from desperately trying to free herself - without any success, of course.

She freezes in her actions when she hears a key being shoved into a lock. The adrenalin that’s pumping through her body is bringing her on edge, but luckily doesn’t stop her brain from functioning. She relaxes her muscles and lets herself sink back into the chains as she closes her eyes and drops her head.

The wood of the door creaks slightly as it’s pushed open and heavy steps echo from the floor as somebody steps closer to her.

“She’s still out cold”, the accented voice of a man says with a hint of annoyance.

“I tell you, I heard her scream”, another man argues desperately.

“You should really stop doing the stuff and start selling it”, the first voice tells him as a warm hand touches Piper’s neck. She tries her best not to tense at the sudden skin contact, but feels her muscles twitch slightly nonetheless, but the man doesn’t seem to have noticed. “Her pulse is racing.”

“Maybe she has a nightmare.”

“For her sake I really hope not”, the fingers leave her skin and she can hear the footsteps moving away again. “Her life’s going to be enough of a nightmare as soon as Kubra decides what to-”, his words are cut off as the door is closed again and after reopening her eyes Piper finds herself alone in the room once more.

She begins to yank at the chains again, over and over, until she’s sure that, measured by the amount of pain all the pulling and tearing causes in her arms, the metal already melded with her bones.

She doesn’t even realize the fresh tears that pool at the tip of her chin to drop to the ground, or the blood that runs down the arms, but what she does notice is the very faint sound of a crack.

Instantly her head snaps up, her eyes directed to the chains above her as good as possible. She concentrates as she yanks at them again - another crack, and another, and another.

After a dozen or so more of them, the screws finally break their resistance and the mounting drops from the ceiling. The metal falls on her head, before it hits the ground, still tied to her hands with the chains, but Piper doesn’t really feel the pain as she just sinks down to her knees and breathes heavily, with a huge grin on her face.

She scrambles up all the screws and hides them in her pocket, before slowly straightening up again with a groan emitted by every sore muscle in her body, which is about every single one.

Slowly she limps over to the door, the positive effects of the adrenalin are beginning to wear off. Instead of strength, she only feels pain and weakness again, but that won’t stop her from reaching that door and its handle. She stretches her arm out, lets her fingers brush the handle, pull it down and slowly pushes against the door. It doesn’t budge. Neither when she pulls at it. She pushes and pulls again, and a third time, before she finally gives up and accepts the fact that the door is pretty much locked.

Her head falls against the wood and she lets herself sink back to the ground, leaning against the door with her forehead and stifling the sobs that are threatening to escape her shaking body.

 

.oOo.

 

Unknown Location  
Day X Unknown Time

“Did you hear that?”, Alex asks Fahri as soon as the noise stopped. It wasn’t long, or particularly loud, but it sounded very much like a scream, far away and yet so close.

“No”, Fahri answers stoically, not turning his eyes away from the direction Kubra disappeared into a few minutes ago, He leans closer to Alex and continues in a whisper. “And neither should you.”

She only answers with a nod, knowing that he’s right, but that doesn’t stop her from seeing the image of Piper hanging in that dark room, with bruises and blood littering her body.

It doesn’t stop her from imagining what they’ll do to her. She knows what Kubra is capable of, after all. She can’t tell every single cruelty that man is able to come up with, but what she _can_ envision lets her stomach coil.

“What do you think he’ll do?”, she asks then, if only to interrupt the awful silence between the two of them.

Fahri raises his eyebrows slightly as he looks at her questioningly. “To you or to her?”

That is indeed a very good question, Alex has to admit. Since she found out that Piper is in this building as well, she hardly thought about herself anymore, and yet, it’s probably her that’s actually in greater danger. She is the mole, after all. Or, supposed mole anyway. Piper is _only_ the cop. He can’t do that much to her without risking that the police catches up to him. Still, she can’t help but worry only about the DEA agent instead of herself.

“Her”, she answers with a wet voice and ignores the look of sympathy Fahri gives her.

“Hard to tell, really. There’s hope he’ll just kill her”, he sighs and lights himself a cigar, still observing the dark spot from where Kubra might come back every minute. “She really means something to you”, he states without really expecting any answer.

There’s a short pause in which nothing but Alex’s heavy breathing is audible to the two of them. “Would that even change anything?”

“Not for the better”, is his honest answer, and she knows it’s true. She would just be used all the more to get to Alex, to torture her. For the first time in what feels like forever Fahri turns his head around to actually look into Alex’s green eyes. He seems unusually kind for the situation they find themselves in right now. “Aren’t you concerned about yourself?”

“Yeah”, she answers absently, not really listening and knowing what the man actually asked her. Instead she’s still thinking about all the things Kubra could do to Piper. And that it will all be her own fault, because she couldn’t stay away from the blonde as soon as she found out about her profession.

Fahri raises a skeptical eyebrow at her, not going into further detail, though, but jut accepting the less than authentic answer. Just as he wants to say something again, Kubra walks back into the room. He straightens his position and takes a step away from Alex, who also straightens herself in the chair she’s yet again bound to.

“Leave us”, is the first thing the drug cartel’s leader says to Fahri, who only nods without any kind of protest and leaves the two of them alone. He draws another chair in front of her again and slowly lets himself sink onto the cushions. “Alex”, he whispers with a shake of his head and an exaggerated sigh. “Alex, Alex, Alex.”

She says nothing to him, but just looks into his eyes, having learned about the very serious situation she’s in right now and the very painful consequences every wrong spoken word can create. Not just for her, but also for Piper.

“I’m not supposed to say that, but…”, he draws a long breath, sounding mostly disappointed, a tone that makes Alex cringe inwardly. “You were always my favorite, you know? You got the job done. Well _and_ fast. You made some mistakes, yes, who doesn’t, though?” There’s a long pause after that in which he just stares at her before he leans forward, closer into her personal space and softening his voice further until it sounds so ridiculously contrary to his words. “But a _mole_ , Alex? My dear Alex _betraying_ me? Ratting me out to the cops?”

“I didn’t do that”, are the first words Alex dares to say to him since seeing him last.

“Then why do I have a DEA agent hanging in my basement?” There’s nothing but silence after this question, and after realizing that Alex is not going to answer his question, Kubra continues, his voice finally departing from the empathic undertone. “And why was one of my best dealers arrested right after we found out about your connection to the DEA?”

“What?”, is all Alex can offer him. She has no idea about any dealer being arrested by the DEA. She has no idea about any of their cases at all, after all. Except of course the case against herself because of the whole Leila Smith business that started this nightmare to begin with.

Kubra looks at her for a while and slowly nods. “You say you’re not a mole, Alex. That you were honest with me.” She nods frantically at him as answer. “Then let’s get back to the good old question which started all this.” He grabs into one of his pockets and takes a small knife out of it. He runs his thumb across the blade a few times, never letting his gaze drop from Alex who can’t help but stare at the sharpened metal with a more than uneasy feeling in her stomach. “Who is Piper Elizabeth Chapman?”

 

.oOo.

 

Unknown Location  
Day X Unknown Time

 _What are you doing here, Chapman?_ , Piper asks herself as she’s draped across the floor right in front of the closed door, holding her head with the one hand and her abdomen with the other as well as possible with her hands still chained to each other. There’s pain all over her body, as well as blood and bruises. And in addition to all the damage others have done to her, her own salty tears are now all over her face. A relatively small factor, considering all the other things of course, but somehow it’s the one thing that actually gets to her.

 _You can do this_ , she continues in her head, comforting herself, as she slowly sits back up and pushes herself off the ground. Very carefully she stands up and lets go of the door, entrusting her still a little bit wobbly legs with the full weight of her body.

 _You survived your parents at Thanksgiving. This is just a small abduction_ , she jokes with herself, hearing Nicky’s voice talking in her head instead of her own and can’t help but smile at the thought of her colleague who definitely would have a lot of stupid jokes ready to lighten the mood.

The other woman is probably already running like crazy around town, trying to find her. But Piper can’t lean on that. New York is a big city, after all, with lots of places to hide. If she even is in New York right now. No, there must be something, anything, she can do herself to either get out of here, or at the very least, help Nicky to find her.

She randomly stumbles across the dark room, bumping into various furniture; table, chairs, cupboard. She touches for documents, keys, items, or anything else, but aside from the hurdles there’s absolutely nothing in this room. Well, it would’ve been too easy if they’d just let her personal stuff lying around in her cell. No, they must’ve hidden her gun and phone somewhere else.

Just as she wants to search the room anew, she can hear a key turn in the door’s lock again. With panic written all over her face, Piper hustles next to the door and presses herself against the wall. The first thing the person who enters will see, is that she isn’t hanging in the middle of the room anymore, so she has to act fast.

She secures the hold on the chains still attached to her wrists and lowers her breathing to a minimum, a huge contrary to her steadily faster pounding heart.

The door is pushed open and some light enters the room. The sight makes Piper almost gasp, but luckily she is able to suppress the sound coming out of her mouth. In the middle of the room, were she still hang not even an hour ago, is a small pond of blood.

Apart from that there are traces of blood everywhere; a streak that leads from the pool to the door, and finger-, as well as handprints all over the furniture.

Piper looks down on herself and for the first time really sees the state she’s in, there’s just dirt and blood all over her clothes and skin. Especially her arms and hands, where the chains tore into her flesh, are heavily bruised and stained with fresh blood still pouring out of the wounds.

She closes her eyes, only for a second, trying to ignore the feeling of nausea in her body, and concentrates on the footsteps that enter the room instead. They’re quiet, and very careful. Their owner is probably wary of the room, seeing it empty of its only captive.

And when Piper reopens her eyes, she looks directly at a man with short dark hair standing only two meters in front of her, his head turned to the pool of blood in the middle of the room.

She tightens her grip around the metal once more, slowly takes a step forward, away from the wall, and lifts her hand, careful not to rattle with the chain.

Just as she’s about to strike out, the man turns his head to the side and sees her out of the corner of his eye. He can’t react fast enough though, as he tries to dodge the attack, and the heavy chain with the mounting attached to it hits him straight at the head.

The man grunts as he falls to the floor with a heavy thud. He only has time to roll over on his back, before Piper’s already on top of him and presses the chain around his neck, stanching his aorta and trachea simultaneously.

His thin mustache trembles as he desperately tries to shove her off of him, grabs her arms, the chains, even tries to punch her, but Piper doesn’t let go as his attacks get weaker and weaker. His eyes are already turning red with blood, his veins begin to pop out and his lips turn blue as the last bit of oxygen in his body is slowly but surely consumed completely.

Not until his hands drop to the floor, his eyes are closed, and his twitching stops, Piper lets go of him and straightens herself up, not leaving her position on top of his torso, though.

She feels for his pulse; it’s very, very weak, but still there, and she’s thankful for that, not having meant to kill the man, but just to stop him.

Knowing that he’s still alive, she swiftly searches his pockets for anything helpful. And indeed she finds a single key, apart from the set of keys, in his trousers, a key that fits her handcuffs.

She opens them instantly and rubs her sore skin, practically bathing in the feeling the soothing touch gives her. Then she cuffs the man’s hands, before searching him further.

The next and last item she finds on his person is, thankfully, a mobile phone. It’s an older model, not a smartphone, which makes it even better, since this one isn’t locked with a pin, but simply the good old keylock.

She takes the phone and all of the keys with her and stands up to leave the room. She closes and locks the door and looks to her left and right where a hallway stretches to both sides with multiple doors and some single light bulbs hanging from the ceilings. Due to the lack of windows and the mass of spider webs, dust, and the overall state the walls are in, she guesses that she’s in some kind of basement.

“Hey!”, she suddenly hears someone call out and snaps her head to the side to see a man charging at her, with a knife in his hand.

She doesn’t hesitate but runs in the other direction as fast as she can, trying various doors until she finds one that isn’t locked. She opens it, jumps inside and throws it shut. She leans against it with her full body weight and tries all the keys of the set she found on the man until one actually fits and locks the door in the nick of time.

Just as she pushes herself off the door with a sigh of relief, the other man on the outside rattles the knob and bangs on the wood. She can hear him shout and instantly grabs for the phone.

She frantically punches in the figures of the only person’s phone number she thinks can help her now. She doesn’t wait for the person on the other end to say anything, but begins talking as soon as the call is picked up. “Nicky”, she whispers into the micro, still trying to control her breathing from the fast run after having lost that much blood and being simply exhausted overall. “Nicky, can you hear me?”

_to be continued..._


	21. Loyal III

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
DEA Division New York  
Day 20 11:31 PM

Nicky’s eyes are dropping since she stepped into the unlit room, but her gaze is never leaving the woman in front of her.

She’s watching Yvonne Parker through the one-way mirror for almost an hour by now, observing every twitch of her muscle, or better said, the nonexistence of any twitch of her muscle.

This woman’s expression is set in stone and so cold that Nicky actually began to freeze after a few minutes of watching her. And here she always thought that Red would be blessed with a cold mimic.

Just as her eyes close once more and threaten to actually stay closed, the door to the observation room opens and Caputo steps in, his arms stacked with different papers. He drops the pile on the small desk in front of Nicky and shoves it closer to her.

“Has she done anything?”, he asks, nodding towards Vee as he sorts the files.

“You mean besides creeping me the fuck out?”, Nicky shakes her head with a sigh. “She’s just staring ahead, ignoring her lawyer.”

The balding man with the grey suit sits next to the woman almost as long as Nicky stands in this room and he’s been talking to her since, with only few breaks. Nicky has no idea what he has told her, with that mass of words welling out of his mouth, but whatever it was, Vee didn’t show any kind of reaction to it, but instead kept staring into the mirror, into Nicky’s eyes, as if knowing exactly where she stands. And it wouldn’t even surprise the agent at all if she actually knew that.

“Then one of us got something out of this crappy day at least”, is her boss’s response.

“Mh?”

“I searched all the stuff found in her apartment”, Caputo points towards the files in front of her as he explains. “Those are all phone numbers and addresses, there _must_ be something useful in them.”

Nicky only sighs, knowing exactly what he wants her to do. “On it”, she mumbles before the chief can even formulate the order. “Good luck with the popsicle.” She grabs the stack of paper and leaves the room as fast as she can, glad to escape that woman’s gaze.

After entering her office and dropping the pile on her desk, she looks awkwardly over to Piper’s side of the room. Her computer is still running on standby, her desk looks still very much used, her jacket is still hanging across the chair. It seems as if she never left the building, but of course Nicky knows better. And Nicky knows that, wherever Piper is now, she’ll need her help, so she sits down, grabs the first paper and begins to search.

For what exactly, she doesn’t know.

After half an hour she at least sorted the mess into different piles. The phone numbers in New Yorker numbers, other numbers, and mobile numbers. And the addresses in New Yorker addresses and other addresses.

She grabs for her phone and calls the first pawn that comes into mind. “Bayley”, she says, her voice thick with tiredness. “Get your ass over here. And better grab some help on the way.” She doesn’t even wait for a response but instead hangs up and repeats searching the different papers, searching for any mistakes she might have made during her sorting.

A few minutes later there’s a hesitant knock at her door before it’s slowly pushed open and the young face of Junior Agent Bayley pops into the room. “Ma’am?”, he asks her uncertain of what to do.

“Get in, all of you”, Nicky answers without looking at him or the people who follow him into the small office. It soon gets crowded as he got four other agents with him. _Perfect_ , Nicky smiles at all of them as she hands each of them a stack of paper. “Get me the information of each of the numbers and addresses. I want to know everything there is to know.”

“But… this will take hours”, Bayley argues, his eyes already red from the lack of sleep he has to endure, like basically every single agent in this unit.

“Do I look like I care?”, Nicky asks the rhetorical question with something dangerously close to pure anger in her voice. The other agent swiftly shakes his head at her. “Fucking right. Now get going, we’ve got an agent to find.”

“Yes ma’am”, the young man answers representing for all of them and ushers their colleagues out of the office.

 _Damn newbies_ , Nicky curses in her head as she stands up and leaves the room herself to head to the basement where the IT section of the building is located, hoping to find a competitive agent among them still at work and awake. These kind of people seem to tend rarer and rarer.

And indeed, there are still monitors glowing in the dark with a single figure sitting in front of them and casting a huge shadow on the ground. Ironically enough one of the best IT agents she’s ever worked with, is also one of the oldest. She has been with the FBI for a very long time, but, oppose to most others her age, never stuck in the past.

When the technology jumped forward, she jumped right with it, always learning about everything new, always catching up. She grew up with the starting and never stopping growth of technology and by now she more than masters it.

“Yo, Chang!”, Nicky calls out as she enters the room and steps closer to the older woman who, as always, doesn’t move a single muscle upon being spoken to. “You awake?”

“Sure. Never sleep at work like you”, Chang answers in her usual manner with short sentences, straight to the point and full of honesty. A trait Nicky admires, since she can’t stand the bullshit and lies people usually tell each other all day long.

“If you say so”, the agent mumbles and positioned herself next to the Chinese to stare at the hundreds of letters and numbers flickering across the monitors; letters and numbers which she has absolutely no idea about what they could possibly mean. “Any good news for me?”

“No”, Chang lets out a rare show of emotion, even though her distress is only notable throughout the heavy sigh that escapes her lips. “Phone offline since half past three.”

Nicky already expected that much, though she still hoped that maybe whoever took Piper forgot to deactivate her phone. It probably won’t be turned on again a lot after the blonde is gone for good, something that Nicky will try to prevent at all cost.

Just as she’s about to thank Chang for trying and looking out for basically anything that could help them find Piper, her own phone rings. “Wait a sec”, Nicky says while grabbing for the small device, receiving only a nonchalant grunt from Chang whose eyes are still fixed on the monitors and keyboard in front of her.

With the phone in her hand, Nicky takes a few steps away and gazes down on the screen. The number’s not in her contact list and she’s pretty sure that she’s never seen it before, either. With a weird feeling settling in her stomach Nicky answers the call and raises the devise to her ear, but before she can ask who called, there’s already an all too familiar voice filling her ears.

“Nicky?”, she hears Piper whisper from the other end of the line, her voice sounds strained and tired and Nicky just stands there, mouth agape for a moment, not really able to contemplate that her missing colleague is talking to her right now, sounding as if… As if there’s almost nothing alive left in her. “Nicky, can you hear me?”, she hears her speak up again after seconds of silence.

“Yeah”, she croaks out, before clearing her throat and repeating her answer. “Yeah, where the fuck are you, blondie?”

“I don’t know”, her colleague answers with panic in her voice, and to Nicky it sounds as if she’s very close to tears. There’s also some yelling in the background and other noises, as if somebody repeatedly throws himself against a door. “I woke up in this room, chained, and then”, Chapman begins to ramble, her sentences picking up speed fast. “The screw broke and then there was this man, I took his phone and ran. And now I’m here. It’s all dark and they’re trying to-”

“Okay, okay”, Nicky interrupts her and walks back over to Chang. “Give me a moment.” She lays the phone down on the desk in front of Chang and activates the loudspeaker. “Track that number”, she orders Chang who instantly starts punching the digits into the keyboard.

“Now back to the start, Chapman, what happened?”

On the other end of the line Piper takes some heavy breaths before she explains it again, though more slowly and with details such as the fight. There isn’t really much to tell besides the fact that Alex really had nothing to do with Piper’s missing, but rather is a victim herself, like Nicky already expected.

“Okay, and where are you now?”, she asks her colleague, full of hope that the blonde is at least right now relatively save until she gets to her with a company of cops behind her.

“A room in some kind of basement”, she explains uncertain before she adds with a shaking voice. “But they know where I am. There’s a-”, suddenly Piper cuts herself off with a loud scream. “No, get away from me!”, she shouts.

“Chapman?”, Nicky calls into the phone, but aside from more shouts and screams she gets no reaction from the blonde. She can hear sounds of breaking wood though, of metal rattling against metal, and of heavy grunts, until suddenly there’s only silence. “Chapman!”

“If I were you, I’d forget about her”, a completely new voice of a man answers the phone right before the line goes dead.

Nicky just stares at the phone, with a hand grabbing a fistful of hair in frustration. “Please tell me you got her”, she whispers quietly at the Chinese next to her, her eyes still not leaving the phone which emits the repeatedly beeping of a dead line since the strange man hung up.

“More or less”, Chang answers and points to one of the monitors in front of her, to which Nicky looks herself now, too.

It shows a satellite image of a circled neighborhood somewhere in New Jersey. “That’s a lot of houses.”

With a stoic expression Chang nods at her. “All can do.” She prints the marked area and hands the paper over to Nicky, who swiftly writes down some of the few information she got from Piper on the backside. Then she rolls it up and tucks it away in her jacket.

“Well”, She answers in a sour tone followed by a sigh and finally picks up her phone to end the annoying beeping sounds before she dials a new number. “It’s more than we had five minutes ago.”

She turns and walks away, only barely registering the mumbled “don’t need thanks anyway.” Already hearing the waiting signal on the phone again, Nicky stands in front of the elevator, impatiently tapping with the foot on the ground as she waits for it to arrive and the doors to open. It’s mocking her defiantly though as it stops on every single floor instead of just rushing down to her.

“This is Bayley”, the other agent finally answers his phone as the elevator still hasn’t arrived, causing Nicky to rushing up the stairs instead.

“Hey, gosling”, she breathes into the phone, taking two steps at the time and dragging herself up at the railing, “concentrate on phone numbers and addresses in Newark, New Jersey.  And get me results asap!”

“Underst-”, Nicky can hear the cut off answer when she hangs up the phone, having arrived her end in front of the interrogation room. She knocks at the door and instantly steps inside without waiting for any response.

“We need to talk, now”, she tells Caputo, interrupting his try at getting Parker to talk. The latter looks smugly over to Nicky, whereat the former’s gaze is far more furious.

“Excuse me”, he grits out as he forcefully pushes himself away from the desk and leaves the room. As soon as he has closed the door behind him, he shouts at his agent. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“Give me anything available”, she says, not even caring for the furious look the chiefs gives her upon her entering without permission and throwing orders at him. “We may have a location.”

“We _may_ have?”, he asks her, taking off his glasses and leaning forward.

“She called”, Nicky explains and Caputo’s eyes widen at hearing this indeed very good news. “She was cut off though, we could trace her back to Newark”, she leans against the wall next to Caputo, lets her head drop and hands him the rolled up paper without looking at him. “With the addresses and the numbers we should be able to find her.”

He nods at hear, brushing across his mustache with his fingers and leaning back into a normal position, not towering over her anymore as he skims the map in his hand. The circle marks about four dozen houses, it’s a lot to scan, but it’s a very good trace nonetheless, especially considering how much information they got only an hour ago. Which was basically none, other than that Piper is missing. “I’ll call Piscitella, tell him to rattle the forces”, he promises and hands the print of the map back to her.

“Thanks”, Nicky pushes herself off the wall again and already walks away. As soon as she set one foot in front of the other, Caputo causes her to halt again, though.

“Find her, Nicky”, his voice is quiet, but strong. It’s neither demanding nor pleading, but like stating a fact. His eyes speak the whole truth of his emotions though, his deep care for his employees. He isn’t a mindless boss who sees his agents only as tools and his cases as political push.

Nicky doesn’t answer except with a small nod before she leaves him behind, making said call to Piscitella, heading straight to where she guesses Bayley and the rest are working. They have to do it fast now, because as soon as Piscitella is ready, she’ll personally lead him and his men to Newark and search every damn house if needed.

She doesn’t like the big agent particularly much, he’s often very rude and has harsh guidelines, but he does his job with determination and doesn’t give up just because there are some obstacles to overcome. No, he gets his job done. And if he’s told to save Piper, then Nicky is pretty sure that the blonde will be save in less than twenty-four hours.

If she isn’t dead already, of course. But that’s a thought Nicky absolutely cannot afford to allow into her mind.

_to be continued..._


	22. Pain I

Newark, New Jersey  
Day X Unknown Time

Alex isn’t sure if they actually want her to hear all the shouting, or if the walls just aren’t thick enough to block out all the sounds. She can’t really make out the words, but they sound aggravated, panicked. Something must’ve happened, most likely a couple of rooms down the floor, Alex guesses.

Then the silence between her and her boss, or at this point _former_ boss most likely, gets interrupted even more by his ringing cell phone.

“Will you excuse me for a second, Alex?”, he inquires in his damn caring voice and actually fucking waits for her to nod her allowance at him.

He gets up from his comfy chair, puts his cigar into the ashtray and gets the phone out of his pocket. He just stares at the screen for a second, before taking the call and greeting the person on the other end in Turkish.

His face grows darker with every single word that is muttered at him between the crackles of the bad line, and suddenly Kubra shouts into the phone, obviously as angry as possible. The veins on his neck swell and for a moment Alex thinks they might burst, as his face turns red.

After he has hung up the call, he takes a very deep breath, his knuckles turn white from gripping the phone way too hard. When he turns back to his best importer, he chuckles darkly.

“It seems I underestimated your lover, my dear.”

Her eyes widen at yet another mention of Piper, and suddenly she has a very good feeling of what must’ve gone wrong just minutes prior. She knew Piper wouldn’t just submit herself without a fight when she would finally wake up. She didn’t in the apartment when she was surprised by Aydin, and neither she’d do while chained to the ceiling.

“I already thought her dangerous after I was told what she did to Aydin”, he grabs for the cigar again, and drags at it once, before he walks back to Alex. And something about the way his fingers around the tobacco twitch scares the shit out of her. “But being able to get out of her cell, almost suffocating one of the guards, and then killing another - in her condition! That’s just… Incredible.”

Alex tries, but ultimately she just can’t stop the small smile from forming on her lips, it’s instantly dropped though upon seeing his hand coming closer, and suddenly she realizes why his cigar seems so frightening to her.

“Sadly, _someone_ has to pay for it.”

His fingers close around the tribal tattoo on her arm and she screams.

 

.oOo.

 

Newark, New Jersey  
Day 20 11:47 PM

She didn’t notice how the wooden door at her back slowly began to give into the continuous pushing and slamming of the furious man outside. She was too caught up with explaining to Nicky what exactly happened while praying to a god she doesn’t really believe in that her colleague will find and get her out of here.

“There’s a-” So when she notices the first plank of the door breaking with a loud crack, it’s already too late.

The new hole in the door is not big enough for a human to step through, but the man can effortlessly put his hand through it and blindly grab for the blonde.

“No!”, she screams as the fingers reach her hair. “Get away from me!” Suddenly the hand yanks with a bunch of hair in its grasp backwards, causing Piper’s head to slam into the door, emitting another audible crack. It’s unclear to her if it’s the wood or her skull that broke, though.

For a moment her vision turns blank, and she feels close to vomit. She doesn’t know how, but she manages to crawl away from the door after the hand let go of her hair, and gets to the far corner before she collapses completely.

That’s when the door finally gives in to one-hundred-and-eighty pounds of pure muscle and is slammed out of the hinges. Footsteps of a single person draw closer to her and stop right next to her head. He gives her a solid kick into her side, right beneath her rips, and it takes her everything not to scream out in pain.

Then she can hear the crumbling of clothing before the man speaks with the voice of the devil. “If I were you, I’d forget about her.” It must be Nicky he speaks those words to, before he hauls the mobile across the room, where it smashes against the wall and breaks into pieces.

What he didn’t notice though, was how the agent managed to sneak a hand into her pocket. Her fingers feel for the long screws she picked up in her cell, and as soon as they touch them, she opens her eyes to see the man standing with his back to her, his feet, clad in white sneakers, right before her eyes.

Very carefully she draws one of the screws out of the pocket, clutching it tightly in a fist. She takes in a deep breath, _here goes all or nothing_. And with a speed she didn’t expect to manage after everything that happened, she slams the screw into the ankle of the stranger, hitting his Achilles tendon.

With a loud pang it’s torn apart, and the man screams as his left leg gives in and he drops to his knees. He turns his face towards Piper who manages to push herself up a bit, just in time to see the screw that she yanked out of the foot again rushing closer to his neck. His eyes widen in an instant, but he can’t react fast enough - the bores into his trachea.

As soon as she takes it out again, the blood is everywhere. It runs down his neck, staining his clothing, and is also gurgled by him. He coughs over and over, spitting out blood as he clutches his own neck, trying to get a decent breath, but the air can’t find the path into his lungs. Slowly but surely he drowns in his own blood, with Piper never having lifted her eyes of him.

She has been in a lot of fights before. Gunfights and fistfights. Fights for fun and for life. She wounded a lot of criminals along the way, and got wounded herself more often than not, but never had she actually killed before.

She just stares at all the warm blood that pools around the dead body, soaking his, and by now her own clothes, and is so caught up in her own shock of having taken a life, that she doesn’t even notice that there was another man in the room all along who now slams a bat into her head.

It’s not enough to pass out completely, she can still hear, even though it’s damped a lot. She can make out rough outlines of her surroundings, if she manages to ignore the pounding headache that worsens as soon as she opens her eyes. And she still smells all the sweat and blood, which mostly causes her gag reflexes to kick in. But she definitely can’t move a single muscle as she feels strong hands grab her by the shoulder.

Someone far away starts to speak, or maybe he’s very close, Piper can’t say. She doesn’t understand a single word either way. What she can tell, though, is that she’s lifted, her upper body anyway. Her feet skid along the floor as she’s dragged somewhere. The voice accompanies her and is soon joined by others. Then there are shouts, and even a scream.

Her eyes snap open again, the pounding in her head worsens, but she endures it as she sees the hallway before her and the door at the end of it, most likely their destination. With each step they take her closer, the scream turns louder and hoarser. It’s full of pain, Piper realizes. They hold someone else captive in this horror basement. And even though Piper doesn’t want to think about it, a certain name crosses her mind.

 

.oOo.

 

Not until the door slams open, the burning sensation leaves Alex’s wrist. Finally, the increasing pain is gone, and left is only the, albeit awful, steady feeling of torn skin, muscles, and crippled nerve endings. She takes in a few deep breaths, and the first thing that hits her nose is the smell of burned skin. _Her_ burned skin.

She had her eyes shut tight for the past couple of seconds, as if that could’ve lessen the pain, and only now opens them again to see a burn mark on her tattoo in the form of a circle and the size of a cigar.

She’s still heavily breathing, but then her heart skips a beat, or a couple more, as she sees who interrupted her own torture. Two men, one of them is Juri, the other she doesn’t recognize right now, drag a conscious Piper inside the room. Her eyes are wild and everywhere at once, as if she’s on drugs, or simply not as conscious as Alex thought at first. Her hands and clothes are coated in more blood than before - probably from the murder Kubra spoke about.

They drag her closer and closer, Alex can already smell the blood in addition to her burned skin. Kubra is just observing them as they roughly drop her to the ground. She doesn’t even _try_ to catch her fall, she just crashes face first into the unyielding floor with a small, barely audible groan.

“Thank you”, Kubra speaks to the two men, but his eyes are fixed firmly on Piper who’s lying motionless to his feet, apart from the steady rise and fall of her torso due to her even breathing. “You may go.” Without muttering a single word, the unknown man leaves them, whereat Juri firmly stands his ground like a soldier.

Kubra lowers himself to the knees and softly brushes a hand through Piper’s bloodied hair. “Don’t touch her!”, Alex screams at him, not able to hold back her rage at the man, caused by so many things. The pain he inflicted on him. The strain his men put Piper through. And the torture that has yet to come.

“Don’t worry, my dear”, Kubra answers, his hand still moving across the head in a soothing motion. “I won’t hurt her.” He raises to his feet and takes a step back. “Myself”, he adds in a small voice and with a feral grin as Juri steps forward to kick Piper into the rips before he hauls her back up.

“Let her go, asshole!”

“My, my, Alex”, Kubra adds a few clicking noises with his tongue and shakes his head as if he’s reprimanding a child. “Always these swearwords with you. Your language can be so beautiful, but you just slaughter it.”

Meanwhile Juri carries Piper to the chair Kubra sat in, right across Alex. He seats her, moves her arms so that the rest on the armrests and ties them tightly to the wooden material. He does the same with her legs. Piper just lets her head hand, her eyes are closed, but she’s still breathing. She’s still alive.

“Her gun, if you’d be so kind”, he orders Juri, who just nods as he turns to leave. As he opens the door, Kubra calls out again. “And a set of screws!”

Nobody says anything. Alex merely stares at the by now unconscious Piper. Kubra on the other hand stands a few feet away from them, his eyes fixed on both his captives. When Juri comes back, he hands a suitcase and a small transparent box filled with long screws over to him, before he’s dismissed as well.

Alex has seen enough of these cases now to know what’s inside, so she doesn’t really react when Kubra opens it and reveals a black Sig. The only difference is, that this weapon is already coated in dried blood. _Her gun_ , she hears Kubra’s voice repeat in her head. Of course, it’s Piper’s own gun, the one she shot Aydin with. The one she pointed at Alex what seems like forever ago.

He doesn’t take it though, not yet. Instead he moves between them and kneels down in front of Piper. He raises his hand to her chin and tilts her head up, so that he can look straight into her face. Then he gives her a small clap against the cheek with the other hand. It’s not supposed to hurt, Alex can tell by the intensity, but simply to make her up.

And really, after a couple of those small claps, Piper’s blue eyes flutter open. Only now the iris is pale than usual, and the white is darkened in a deep red.

“Good evening, Miss Chapman”, Kubra greets her with a warm voice, which makes the situation only creepier. “It’s nice to finally meet you.

Piper doesn’t answer, she just stares him into the eyes, before her gaze flickers to Alex behind him for a second, and then back to him.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Kubra fucking Balik, shithead and drug lord.”

Despite all the pain, emotionally and physical, and the tenseness of the situation they’re currently in, Alex snorts in amusement at the direct answer of the agent.

“You seem to have _one_ thing in common”, Kubra replies with a sigh, directed to both, Alex and Piper. He lets go of her chin and stands back up, walking around the room.

Alex doesn’t follow him with her eyes though, and neither does Piper. They just stare at each other, at each other’s wounds and blood.

“I am really impressed by you, Miss Chapman”, Kubra interrupts the silence as he stopped by the table with the Sig and the box of screws on it. “You somehow managed to turn my most loyal employee.”

“I didn’t turn on you”, Alex defends herself once more and feels the burning stare Piper leaves on the side of her head as she herself turned to look to Kubra.

“No. But you fucked a DEA agent.”

“So what? She had nothing on you!”

“Alex. You’re long enough in the business to know who to screw around with and who to leave behind. Hold your friends close, but your enemies closer doesn’t apply in our business!”, his voice suddenly changed from his warm tones into an almost shout. Loud and tearing through everything in its path. “And you also know that I never tolerated this before.” Finally, he pulls on a glove and takes the Sig out of the case.

Alex visibly gulps at the sight of the gun now in his hands. This can’t be over yet. They have to get away somehow. She promised it. She promised. But Kubra doesn’t pull the trigger, he doesn’t even aim it at anybody, he just draws another chair closer and sits down, right next to Alex.

“There’s another thing that really impresses me, Miss Chapman”, he continues in a softer voice once more. “And that’s how brutal and ruthless you are.”

“If that’s so, untie me and I’ll show you even more.”

“No, I feel quite alright here next to my dear Alex, with your murderous hands tied.” He then tilts his head to the importer. “Do you even know how dangerous your lover is?”

Alex doesn’t answer. She has to be some dangerous, of course. She’s a DEA agent, after all. She has seen Piper pull a gun at herself, and she has seen what she did to Aydin. But it’s not really something she thought long and hard about, having been surrounded by dangerous people every day since she’s eighteen.

“You know she shot Aydin. But the way she killed Nasir…”, he trails off.

 _So Nasir is the one she murdered trying to flee_ , Alex thinks. She won’t really cry for the man, but he was nice enough, nicer than most of Kubra’s lackeys.

“Not to mention that she almost strangled a man to death with the chains she hung from minutes before. And you know who it was?”

Alex expects him to make a short pause to add some drama, but he seriously waits for Alex to ask him to continue. “Who?”

“Fahri.”

Alex eyes widen in shock and she snaps his face to look at Kubra who’s smiling a smug smile at her. Piper noticed the reaction as well, as it has left her with a confused stare.

“The people you care for seem to be put in ugly positions, Alex. I have still no clue what he was entering her cell for, but I’ll deal with him later. Now though”, he turns his eyes back to Piper. “I’ve got a DEA agent and a snitch to deal with.” He lets out a loud sigh and stretches his back. “I’m no monster though, I’ll give you five minutes before we begin.” And suddenly he simply stands up and leaves the room, leaving only Alex and Piper behind, who still stare at each other.

“Hey Pipes”, is the first thing that slips across Alex’s lips. And she can’t believe that she actually said those words. They’re probably going to be dead in an hour at most, and all she has to say is a _hey Pipes_?

Piper chuckles though and even cracks a small smile. “You know, I actually wanted a real date with you. This isn’t what I imagined though.”

“I am so fucking sorry, Pipes…”

“Don’t sweat it. I mean, I’ve still got all my fingers and teeth, so that’s a plus”, if Piper tried to make it sound like a joke, she failed miserably. Instead it’s laced with accusing sarcasm. But as soon as she notices that herself, she sighs. “Who’s Fahri?”

Of course that question would come up. Alex reaction to him being strangled was obvious enough, after all. “The closest thing to family I have left”, she replies in all honesty. It isn’t really the time to lie to her right now.

Piper’s eyes drop to the floor, processing the new information. She looks a bit guilty, but otherwise Alex can’t decipher her body language. “Nicky will get us out. I called her right before those fuckers got me”, she decides to just change the topic. “All we have to do is stall time.”

Alex simply nods at her, wanting to say more, but she doesn’t know what there is to say. Is now the right time to reveal her feelings to her? Most probably not. She’s still very much tied to a chair, moments away from being executed by her boss. On the other hand, if not now, then when?

Just as she opens her mouth to admit her feelings to herself and to Piper, the door swings open and Kubra enters again, a second pistol in his other hand. “I hope you two bonded well, because now has come the time to have some fun.” He puts the weapons down for a moment, then stands behind Piper and pushes her chair closer to Alex until their knees are almost touching. Then he takes the guns again, but doesn’t sit back down, instead he hovers next to Alex and, believe it or not, puts Piper’s sig into her hand.

“What are you doing?”, Alex asks bewildered and full of panic. Why would Kubra give her a gun? Her arm is still tied to the chair, so she can’t aim it at anybody and hence not properly use it, but that is still a stupid move. Or isn’t it?

“Do you know the idiom _Treat others like you want to be treated_?”, he ignores Alex question completely and instead turns his attention to Piper.

“Of course”, she grits out, staring daggers at him.

“It’s a nice thing to live by. I prefer it a little bit different, though. More like _Treat others like they treat you._ ” He pulls out a knife, cuts the ties on Alex’s arm, giving her the ability to aim the deadly weapon now, and leans the barrel of his own gun against the side of Alex’s head. “We do this chronologically, so let’s begin with the shoulder.”

Alex’s eyes widen in panic as she realizes what he orders her to do. His words echo in her mind as his cold gun is pressed to her temple and the black sig lies heavily in her hand.

_I won’t hurt her. Myself._

_to be continued..._


	23. Pain II

Newark, New Jersey  
Day 21 12:08 AM

There’s a loud squeak in the background, like a tinnitus, tearing its way through her brain, messing with her mind. It’s only barely there and yet it hurts more than the bullet in her shoulder. Mostly because it’s constant, it’s penetrating. The shot though was a sudden pain, harsh, and brutal at the time of the impact, but as soon as the bullet stopped in the muscle right below her joint, the pain ebbed down.

It missed every bone and every vital artery by mere inches, a miracle, really, especially since the woman across from her has never fired a gun before and her hands shook without any intent. Even though she sat very close to her, the bullet could’ve gone everywhere; the head, the heart, or just missed her at all.

“Do it”, Kubra whispered into her ear. “Prove your loyalty.”

She didn’t want to fire the gun, Piper has seen it in her eyes; the panic, filled to the brim with unshed tears as she tried to appear brave. Like a deer caught in the headlights, not yet realizing what’s rushing towards it, but frightened anyway.

Piper on the other hand looked at her like she’d run willingly towards the closer rushing car. Her eyes were determined and focused, but if you’d look closely enough, you’d see the truth behind the wall. The fear she felt herself, knowing what Alex was asked to do. What she was about to ask Alex to do herself.

So, when Kubra turned his head to look at his employee only, Piper used the time to nod, and moved her lips into a silent “do it” herself.

Alex still hesitated, but at one point in this long dragged seconds she realized that this was the only way. Her thumb moved to cock the gun, her index hovered in front of the trigger, and then squeezed it. Slowly, then suddenly the loud pang rang through the room, penetrating Piper’s ears, right before the bullet impacted with her flesh.

She pressed her teeth together, trying not to scream, and because of the pain that ran through her shoulder she didn’t even realize that she caught her own lip between her teeth and was drawing even more blood now. It ran down her bruised chin and from there dropped down into her lap. Though that small stream was nothing of course compared to the flood pouring out of her shoulder.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the ache with which her whole body was screaming, not just the shoulder, but _everything_.

And when she opens them again, all she sees is white, and all she hears is that damned tinnitus.

She’s breathing heavily and uneven. Sometimes it’s a few short breaths, then a long dragged one. She moves her eyes around, trying to find Alex in the nothingness around her, but all she sees is white.

So she blinks. Once, twice. After the third she’s suddenly back in the room, staring at Alex who by now has shed some of her tears. The tinnitus is only background noise again, and instead the dark voice of the drug lord fills the air.

“Since I’m no cruel man, I’ll offer you a choice, Miss Chapman.”

Piper still grits her teeth as she tries to think about something else than the fucking bullet that’s stuck in her muscle tissue.

“I’ll ask you a question and you answer it.” He slowly walks around Alex, his gun still aimed at her head. “If I like the answer, I’ll move on to a new question.” He sits down in the chair, the barrel never leaving Alex’s skull, his eyes never leaving Piper’s face. “If I think you lie to me, dear Alex will move on to the next wound you inflicted on one of my people.” He moves the gun slightly, so that it’s now pointed at Alex’s jaw from below, tilted upwards. “Let’s start with something easy, to help you catch your breath. What’s your name?”

“Piper Chapman”, she grits out.

“Your full name, please.”

She feels the sudden urge to roll her eyes. “Piper _Elizabeth_ Chapman.”

“You are with the DEA, is that correct?”

“It is.”

“Wonderful”, he replies as if he’s truly happy to hear that. “What’s your current case?”

Piper presses her lips into a thin line. Not wanting to admit to him right away that her current case is indeed directly connected to his cartel. It would only worsen the situation. Especially for Alex.

Kubra doesn’t particularly like the silence, though. “There’s another rule I forgot to tell you”, he chuckles, as if this was all just a game, before his face turns awfully serious and he exhales sharply, pressing the gun closer to Alex; the barrel now digs into the jaw. “If you don’t answer at all, I will pull this trigger.”

The agent furrows her brow in anger at him, but after another short moment of hesitation she answers anyway, even quicker now that Kubra’s thumb has already moved to the weapon’s cock. “Drug found at JFK, February eleventh.”

“Ah, I remember that one”, he nods at her with a small smile. “That was yours, wasn’t it, Alex?”

“Yes”, she croaks after a moment. Her voice is hoarse and wet at the same time, her hand still shaking, and the tearsfall freely from her eyes by now as she watches the bleeding agent on the opposite who tries everything not to writhe in pain.

“Of course, what was the name of the mule again?” Just as Alex opens her mouth to answer the question, Kubra waves a finger at her. “Ah, ah! Let’s give Miss Chapman a try, I’m sure she knows the answer as well.”

“Leila Smith”, the blonde sighs her answer.

“See, I told you”, he smiles at Alex for a second before turning his full attention back to Piper. “Now, what I’m interested most in is… How did you find out?”

“I investigated”, she replies drily.

“Elaborate.”

“I searched the bag, then the flight list, and the database at last. She had a criminal record”, Piper adds the last part with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, something she regrets immediately as the pain shoots through her body and causes her to hiss.

“Did you have help with it?”

“No”, she answers truthfully. She didn’t, after all. She found out the name on her own while Nicky was snoring in her chair.

Kubra doesn’t seem too pleased though. “So, you found out all alone?”

“Yes.”

“Your partner didn’t help you at all?”

“I don’t have a partner”, she smoothly lies without hesitation. There’s no way she’ll bring Nicky into this mess of hers, other than the way she already is involved, anyway.

Alex eyes widen in fear, she knows that Piper’s lying, having met Nicky already, and Kubra seems to think so, too. His face darkens and his lips twitch as he stares at her. “Alex, the knee, if you’d be so kind.”

The gun shakes in her hand as Alex lowers it to Piper’s knee. They’re so close to each other, that the barrel almost touches the fabric of her pants. This way missing her won’t be very likely.

So Piper just takes in a deep breath and closes her eyes, preparing herself for the next shot, that comes at her even more brutal than the first.

She screams. She screams louder than she ever screamed before as the kneecap and the jolt that hides beneath it burst due to the impact of the bullet. It goes straight through the leg and falls with a small clatter to the floor, not that anyone can really hear that sound - her screaming drowns out everything else.

She’s still screaming when she opens her eyes again and the white is back. Slowly her voice dies out, not because she stops though, but simply because her lungs are void of air and she simply cannot make a single sound anymore.

So when she doesn’t hear her own voice ringing in her ears anymore, the tinnitus is back, now joined by other noises. Closer drawing footsteps, rustling of clothing, clattering of metal. She has absolutely no clue what those sounds mean, but the tinnitus is slowly beginning to fade away.

No, it’s not fading, it’s starting to break apart.

And then, after another blink of her eyes, it’s gone completely, and she looks into the green eyes of Alex again. Only for a moment though, before everything turns black and she drifts into blissful unconsciousness, with all noises gone, every picture gone, her own pain gone.

 

.oOo.

 

“What a shame”, Kubra whispers and lowers his own gun from Alex’s head.

Alex doesn’t react, she barely registers that her boss said something at all. Her eyes are firmly fixed on the sagged form of Piper, the vision slightly blurred by the tears forming in her eyes.

The blonde’s head hangs between her shoulders, the blood is still dripping from her bleeding lip, as well as pouring out of her shoulder, though the flow slowed down by now; Alex must’ve missed any vital arteries, and she’s so fucking thankful for that.

But then her eyes drop to the smashed knee of the agent. There’s not much to see besides blood everywhere and the occasional white shimmering through. The white being a splinter of the shattered bone.

Suddenly Kubra stands next to the blonde, Alex didn’t even notice him raising from his chair. He watches the unconscious woman and then touches her neck. Alex wants to scream at him again, but she can’t, she just stares, too shocked to do anything else than look.

“I’ve got good news”, he begins, withdraws his hand and takes off his now blooded gloves. “She’s still alive, so we can continue our talk in a bit.”

Alex lets out a breath she didn’t know she’s been holding the whole time. But now that she also draws new air in, she’s actually able to do anything else than stare. And she decides to do the thing that comes to her mind first. “You sick fuck!”, she shouts at Kubra.

She moves her hand to Kubra, and just as she wants to pull the trigger at him, she realizes that the gun isn’t even in her hands anymore. Kubra took it away when her mind was still dizzy and focused on the blonde.

“And here I thought you’d be happy to have her still breathing”, he blinks twice, looking as if he’d be honestly confused and then takes his own gun back in his hand, holding the barrel against the blonde’s temple. “Well we can always change that.”

“No!”

“You’re really sending me unclear messages, Alex”, Kubra sighs, still aiming the gun at Piper. “What is it you want me to do?”

“Just”, Alex begins, and her head is coming up with so many different endings. _Let her go. Leave us alone_. _Screw you. Kill yourself_. After a moment she settles with “let her rest.” It seems like the safest decision - anything else wouldn’t do anything good. And provoking him further would most probably get them killed sooner rather than later.

No, she still has to stall time for the both of them. For Nicky to get them out of this hellhole.

“Alright”, he nods and tucks his gun away again. “I have to see to Fahri anyway.”

“What will you do to him?”

“It depends on what he has to say”, Kubra shrugs and leaves the room, not without ordering Juri to guard the two women though. The mountain of a man just stands next to the door and watches them nonchalantly while Alex observes Piper closely.

She doesn’t wake up though, not for a very long time. Not even when somewhere within the building a single shot is fired.

 

.oOo.

 

“She’s waking up, Sir”, are the first words she hears when she’s slowly returning to consciousness. And right after her ears proved that they still function fully, despite that annoying tinnitus anyway, her nerves just tell her the same, as they send wave after wave of pain sensation through her body and straight into her brain.

She groans and hisses with every move she does, and after a few more tries of getting her body to do _anything_ , she simply gives up and lets the pain wash over her.

That’s when she opens the eyes and sees Alex staring at her. Her hands are both tied again, the gun gone, otherwise she doesn’t seem all too different than before, though, if you don’t count the red, puffy eyes and wet, salty cheeks.

“Alex”, Piper croaks out. If she didn’t know she wanted to say a name, she wouldn’t have recognized it as one herself, but the brunette seems to hear it anyway, as she gives her a small smile. The tiniest smile there is to offer in this situation, before it’s dropped almost as fast as it came.

“Pipes”, she whispers as answer and sounds exactly like she looks; as if she cried for hours. “God I, I’m-”

“Don’t”, Piper interrupts her, knowing where her speech is headed to. But it’s not Alex’s fault. Not exactly this situation, anyway. And she may have pulled the trigger, causing her the cruelest pain she’s ever been in, but someone else was holding the gun the entire time. “How long… have…”

“You been out?”, Alex finishes the question for Piper as she notices her difficulty to speak and gets a curt nod as clarification. “I don’t know. Couple of hours?”

“Three”, the gruff voice of Juri answers from the side. “Not that it means anything.”

 _Oh, but it does_ , Piper thinks. Being out gave them three more hours - gave _Nicky_ three more hours to find them. She should arrive anytime soon now. Or so Piper hopes. The call should’ve been enough to at least narrow the place down, but Piper is sure that the crazy woman has found more clues than only this one.

But before she can truly relish in this new information, the door is thrown open and Kubra reenters the torture chamber. “Welcome back, Miss Chapman”, he greets her as he drawls closer. With a movement of his hand he urges Juri to follow him. “I must say I really missed talking to you.”

“I bet.”

“Oh, you don’t sound too good”, he shakes his head and thinks for a moment. “Would you like something to drink?” Without waiting for an answer to his abstract question, he continues. “Juri! A glass of water, please.”

Juri nods and leaves them, only to return shortly with a glass of water and a straw in it. He holds it close to Piper, who stoically refuses to part her lips for the straw, though.

Her mouth is dry, and she’d love nothing more than to sip the liquid right now, but she won’t. _Call me childish_ , she thinks as she continues to ignore the straw and stares into Kubra’s eyes.

“I see we skip the pleasantries.” At that Juri takes the straw out, jerks the glass, and with that splashes its complete contents into Piper’s face. She flinches, opens parts her mouth in surprise, and coughs as the water enters her nostrils and throat. “Have it your way, then.”

He nods to Juri who’s standing behind Piper and suddenly there’s a string around Piper’s neck, digging into her skin and pulling her backwards. “Number three was strangling, if I’m correct”, Kubra mumbles as he moves closely to her face.

Piper gasps for breath, her nails dig into the wooden armchair, and she tries to get away from the string with her head, but when she moves, it just follows, getting tighter. There’s no way she can do this for long.

“When did you meet Alex?”

Just as her vision slowly darkens, the string loosens again and gives her the ability to breathe freely. She takes in a few breaths, before she turns to Kubra. “Why?”

“I bet that she falls for you this way was never the plan of yours, was it?”, he ignores her inquiry and the fact that she didn’t even answer his question, but simply continues with his rhetoric interrogation. “You saw an opportunity in her, a way to get to my cartel. But that’s why undercover work is always so dangerous, isn’t it? The feelings.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Tell me, how did she react when she found out who you really are? That you just used her?”

“I didn’t!”, Piper now screams at him, then she turns to look to Alex, to see what her expression she has, if she believes what he says. But she doesn’t look into her eyes, her gaze is dropped to the ground. And recalling this awful night of the truth a week ago, Piper knows why. She knows that, at one point anyway, that thought entered Alex’s mind, too. “I didn’t”, she repeats in smaller voice, directed to the brunette this time.

“You just wanted to get to me through her… You know, in a way you’re worse than me. At least I never lied to her.”

“Me neither.”

“No, but you hid the truth about you.”

“Because I love her!”, Piper suddenly finds herself screaming and is shocked by that declaration herself. All this time she was asked this question; does she love Alex? Never did she really dare to say so, but now she was screaming it; in the wrong person’s face, at the wrong time.

The sentence seems to have an effect though, on both Alex, and Kubra. The latter just stands there, completely silenced, whereat Alex finally looks up again, into Piper’s eyes.

“Everybody leaves me for being who I am, I was afraid”, she admits, talking to Alex as if Kubra wasn’t anywhere near them. “And then you did, and then I found about…”

“I love you, too”, Alex whispers when Piper trails off and finds nothing more to say.

“Enough!”, Kubra shouts, interrupting the talk they both dreaded and longed for at the same time for the past week, albeit it’s a lot different than they both would’ve imagined. “When did you meet Alex?”

“I don’t know…”, Piper closes her eyes to recall the evening at the bar, the night in the club. It was right after one of her and Larry’s fight. “February twelfth?”

“How?”

She rolls her eyes, not really wanting to reliving all those moment right now and with blood pouring down her body. “I got in a fight with my fiancé and went out to get drunk.”

“And since when do you know she works for me?”

“Since you asshole kidnapped me!” Of course she learned that Alex is in the drug business sooner that few hours prior, but telling him that would hardly ease the situation.

“You mean to tell me, you meeting her is all a stupid coincidence?”, he practically growls.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Argh!”, Kubra screams in full rage, draws his gun in one swift motion and shoots, before anybody even had the chance to blink, and for Piper everything turns white once more.

The pain increases, the tinnitus returns, breaking into several beeps, sometimes long, sometimes short. She hears two women screaming at each other, but can’t make out the words. She knows their voices, but can’t place them. Then there’s a third voice, someone touches her face, and light flashes in and out of her vision.

“-man? Miss Chapman?”

She blinks, multiple times, but the vision stays the same. White, with flashing lights. She never returns to Kubra and Alex, but the pain stays with her. The shouting decreases, instead her name is whispered all the more, and the beeping continues, synched to the beating of her heart.

_to be continued..._


	24. Revival I

Unknown Location  
Day X Unknown Time

They murmur her name over and over again, and it doesn’t take long for her until she can’t bear hearing it anymore, those pleading sounds. But she can’t do anything about it.

She wants to answer, or at least nod, but nothing obeys her command. Her brain is still racing and with each beep that she hears pictures of Alex sitting in front of her, the gun in her hand, flash before her eyes. Her nose is still picking up the scent of gunpowder, a scent she likes on the shooting range, but now it only makes her want to vomit.

And then there’s the blood, _her_ blood, and it’s everywhere. It’s directly connected to the immense pain flowing through her nerves.

“Chapman, come on!”, one of the three voices calls out for her once more. It’s female and as familiar as the other female voice, maybe even more so. And for the first time in what feels like hours she actually feels something besides the pain, and the beeping gets faster.

A touch. Someone’s touching her shoulder. No, not just touching, but shaking it. Her hand feels something, too; foreign fingers tightly wrapped around hers.

And then suddenly the white cloud that covers her eyes fades away, leaving a blurry scenery behind. Ironically enough the colors in front of her blind her for a moment, before she finally recognizes someone.

Her eyes have caught Nicky’s face first. Most probably because her wild hair is even wilder and bigger than usual, claiming most of her vision. She has dark circles under her reddened eyes, and not just from the heavy amount of mascara she always uses. No, she looks as if she hasn’t slept for a week, and that’s a very rare sight, as she usually sleeps more than a sloth.

Piper wants to say her name as she feels a wave of relief washing over her, but she can’t muster a single sound. As soon as she realizes that something’s stuck in her mouth, pressing on the back of her palate, her gag reflex kicks back in.

“Okay, calm down, I’ll take the tube out”, a male voice tells her calmly, but she doesn’t really pick up the words or their meaning as she feels like choking despite that fresh air somehow continues to make its way into her lungs even with the foreign object blocking everything. “Gina!”

Carefully he pulls the object out of her trachea, for a moment the gag reflex worsens before it vanishes completely, leaving nothing but a very bad taste in her mouth behind. She draws in fresh air, her torso heaving heavily with each breath.

“Okay, good, keep breathing. I’m going to lay a nasal cannula now, so that we can provide you with fresh oxygen, okay?”, his words are slow spoken and the voice low, making sure that she understands with her racing mind and heavy breathing, which by now emits a stinging pain in her lungs with every intake of air.

He’s already moving before she nods her consent and suddenly four hands are hustling closely to her face. The fingers brush her skin every now and then, creating a trail of goosebumps. They’re placing something into her nose and after a few seconds breathing becomes a lot easier.

“Very good, Miss Chapman”, the man praises her, though his face hints to no such emotion. His eyes are fixed on something to her right as he talks to her and with every breath she takes the pause between those annoying beeps gets longer and the sound itself is pushed more and more into the background.

Finally she takes her time to take in her surroundings completely. Four people, two of them she knows, surround her. Nicky is still hovering next to her head, her eyes flicker back and forth, scanning her face, making sure she’s alright. Next to her, with enough space that not even the tips of her wild hair would be able to touch anything, stands Carol Chapman.

Her chin is raised as always, but her eyes seem defeated and full of pain. It’s a look she has never seen before on her face, not even when she told her mother about her father’s affair all those years ago.

The people on the other side she doesn’t know at all. One of them is a tall man wearing a white coat, a stethoscope slung around his neck. He’s obviously a doctor.

And to his left a small, skinny woman, about the height of Nicky, is scanning her. She has short dark hair and wears the typical clothes of a nurse.

As she follows the doc’s line of sight, she stares at a couple of monitors that flash some numbers at her, one of them is an ECG, and they’re all connected to her in some way. _Explains the beeping_.

“Where am I?”, she knows that she’s obviously in a hospital, but it’s the first question that slips out of her mouth nonetheless.

“Presbyterian”, the doctor is the one to answer her, turning his gaze back to her. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I’ve been shot.” As soon as she croaks the words, she hears the gunshots ring out again, she feels the pain of the bullets connecting with her skin. First her shoulder, then her knee. She feels the string around her neck, and then something more, something too painful to even put a place as its source. It’s just everywhere.

“To put it mildly.”

And just like that the stranger explains to her all the damage that has been done to her. Aside from the obvious several cuts and bruising along her skin, she sports a lot of internal injuries.

The least dangerous one is her shoulder where she was shot first. As already expected by her, the bullet went straight through her muscle tissue and missed everything vital. She did lose a lot of blood because of this wound and the others, but thankfully as a cop she let someone draw blood so that in case of an emergency she’d have enough of her own at disposal. Of course she hoped it’d never come to her needing it, but in the end it clearly was worthwhile.

She couldn’t help shaking as soon as he began to tell her the severe damage the second bullet did to her knee. It’s been totally smashed, bone and tendons. “With therapy you’ll be able to use it again properly, but it will take time.”

The third shot that Piper doesn’t really recall anymore obviously hit her torso, because the doctor is talking about broken rips and a punctured lung. And in Piper’s opinion _punctured_ really sugarcoats it - the bullet blew a fucking hole in it, causing it to collapse. They repaired all the damage they could, but the natural healing process is still in work, hence her trouble and pain with regular breathing.

Piper closes her eyes and takes in all she just learned about her condition. She’s fucked, that’s for sure. They put her through surgery for hours and hours, and didn’t even have to put her into a coma, since she seemed to have decided that waking up by herself would’ve been too good a move.

“How long have I been out, then?”

“Twenty-three days.”

 

.oOo.

 

Litchfield, New York  
Litchfield Correctional Facility  
Maximum Security  
Day 46 04:34 PM

Alex shuffles from one foot to the other as she holds the beige tray in her hand. It’s dinner time and one of those bitches from the Spanish group pushes herself past her to skip line, like she always does. She’d love nothing more than to smash the still empty tray into the back of the other woman’s skull, but decides against it.

The guards around here don’t really care if their _wards_ exchange a few blows as long as nobody is about to get seriously injured, but as it turned out Alex can’t fight off a whole bunch of those stupid idiots, she still sports some fresh bruises to prove that.

But then again, she doesn’t really care. The food isn’t even close to good enough to start a fight about it, and she can’t stomach a lot of it anyway.

When it’s her turn, she holds the tray across the counter and waits for her fellow captive to fill it with the usual greyish undefinable mass of something. She walks off to the farthest table in the room and sits down, with no companion by her side as usual, to eat her food that tastes of nothing but salt. Then she will go back to the cell, lie down on her bed and wait for the next morning.

Sleep, shower, eat, rest, eat, rest, eat, and then repeat. It’s her daily routine now, it has been for the past three weeks, with an occasional visit by her lawyer in between.

Only seconds after that final shot was fired by Kubra, all hell broke loose. Piper screamed in pure agony before she went unconscious once more. Just then the door to the torture chamber was thrown out of the hinges, loud shouts filled the room, flashlights flickered across the empty walls. Heavy footsteps closed in. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Kubra throw his hands up, but otherwise her eyes where firmly fixed on the still form of Piper, with the blood pouring out of her chest.

“All clear!”, somebody shouted, and then there was a new voice; female and familiar. She’s heard it before, only on one day, but she recognized it anyway.

“Chapman!” Suddenly a mass of strawberry blonde hair blocked her sight. “Get the paramedics!”, she shouted and then continued in a lower voice, solely speaking with Piper now. “Chapman, come on, wake up. We’re here, we got you.”

“Nicky?”, Alex finally mustered to breathe, and only now Nicky turned around and met her eyes. She looked completely confused, as if she didn’t even notice the brunette before. And she probably really didn’t, everything in her brain completely fixed on the other agent.

And then all of the sudden her face changed into something different, into something way angrier. The worry for her colleague vanished completely as well as the confusion of seeing Alex sitting in front of her. With a loud outcry Nicky threw her fist forward, her knuckles connected with Alex’s cheek once, twice. After the third blow, her glasses finally flew off her face and fell to the ground.

“Nichols, calm down!”, another voice called out from behind and strong arms began pulling her back, not before she managed to land another blow, though.

“I’ll fucking kill you, Vause!”, Nicky called out, her voice was raw, but Alex already zoned it out as her eyes were able to fix on Piper once more. The paramedics arrived by now, pulling her on a stretcher, and then carrying her out, while trying to stop the bleeding.

She touches her cheek as she continues to ignore her food on the table in front of her. She didn’t even feel the pain as Nicky continued to punch her, but she can still feel the small scars that are forming from the wounds her blows inflicted.

“Vause!” Torn out of her thoughts Alex looks up to where a guard is leaning against a rail on the upper floor. “Throw that junk away, you’ve got a visitor.” She furrows her brow. Nobody bothered to visit her, aside from her lawyer or a cop to interrogate her further, and she wouldn’t know who’d even _want_ to visit her, either. “Now, Vause!” But she’s got nothing to do anyway, so she stands up, throws the leftover food away and follows the guard, still touching her own cheek occasionally.

Nicky had every right to punch the crap out of her. She promised she’d kill her if she’d hurt Piper’s heart. She didn’t do that, of course, but what she did was so much worse.

A picture of the last shot flashes in front of her again, the sounds of screaming rings in her ears. They came only seconds after Kubra had lost it. But it was seconds too late anyway.

Piper’s gone.

And it is her fault.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Presbyterian Hospital  
Day 46 11:47 AM

“Get me out of here”, Piper pleads, not for the first time by far. She has only woken up yesterday, but she’s already so sick of this place. They moved her into a new room, as the first was reserved for comatose patients. The television is turned on, currently showing some comedy show she doesn’t know.

“Don’t be stupid, Chapman. You can’t even walk”, her colleague responds as she flops down on the bed next to Piper, pulls at the blanket and drapes it over the both of them.

She huffs in annoyance, although that statement is sadly very true. A turn of her head to the right throws the awful truth right into her face. The wheelchair standing next to her bed is hers, after all. She has used it twice since waking up in the hospital. Because even though the food is brought to her bed and she has anything she needs on the nightstand, she still needs to pee.

“I can hobble”, she responds after a couple of seconds which are only filled with the chatter on the television. “I’ve still got my left leg, after all.”

“Yeah, and you’d get about five meters before you’d drop to the ground from exhaustion.”

Again Piper huffs. Because Nicky is right once more, moments like these are really annoying. “Don’t you have work to do?”

The other woman just laughs and turns to give her a look that tells Piper everything she needs to know. Of course Nicky has work to do, but since when does Nicky care about something plain like that?

“Can we talk about it, then?”

Nicky sighs and drops her eyes. “I don’t feel like it, Chapman.”

“You’re not allowed to say that, Nicky. I was the one to be kidnapped and tortured.” Piper rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

“Yeah, and you’re awfully calm about it all.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Hell yes!”, she almost shouts as answer. “If you’re not already breaking apart you’ll be soon enough, and I won’t be the reason, you hear me?”

They’re both silent for a moment. _So this is what it is about_. She’d never thought that she’d see Nicky afraid of causing emotional pain to somebody, but here she is, lying in bed next to her, eyes shut tight, admitting just that. “You won’t be, Nicky”, Piper whispers. “The fault is Kubra’s.”

When Nicky still says nothing, Piper decides to try and lighten the mood a bit. “You know what I truly love?” The other agent just looks at her with a raised eyebrow. “When you and my mother clash.”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard every word when the doc asked you two to leave yesterday”, Piper chuckles at the memory of the two women screaming at each other, blaming each other, accusing each other of not caring for her. She’s surprised they didn’t punch the crap out of each other as well. “Fuck, the whole hospital did.”

It has it desired effect as Nicky gives her a toothy smile. “Why, I aim to please.”

“Yeah, I _heard_ ”, Piper replies dryly, causing Nicky to snort with laughter.

“Damn, I never thought I’d hear you make such jokes.”

“Sadly it’s not even a joke. I know way more about you than I’d like to”, Piper sighs. “Lorna’s not just loud, but also talks a lot.”

“Well, she’s got a very talented mouth.”

“How in hell did this conversation turn from my _mother_ into something _sexual_?”, Piper wonders out loud with a shudder.

“Jeez, thanks Chapman, those are pictures I didn’t need.”

“You tell me”, she mutters and falls back into silence, this time it’s the usual comfortable sort of silence though, and not something weird. She’s got to talk with Nicky about it at one point, though.

It’s an hour later that she asks the question that actually tears at her most, disrupting the silence once more. “What happened to Alex?”

She hears Nicky take in a sharp breath at the mention of the name. Why, she can’t tell though. “I won’t talk about her”, she mutters, clearly angry. Piper gets that Nicky blames her for everything that happened. And hell, she isn’t even that wrong, especially since two of her wounds were inflicted by Alex. But she didn’t want to hear any of it.

“Nicky, please.”

The other agent sighs, but won’t look up into the blonde’s eyes. “She’s alive and in better condition than you are.”

“It’s not her fault, Nicky. None of this.”

“None of this?”, Nicky almost shouts and jumps out of bed, running a hand through her hair. “Are you fucking kidding me?” She starts pacing next to the bed, her voice is still loud and is thrown back at her from the blank walls. “You wouldn’t lie there, not able to fucking _breathe_ properly if it wasn’t for her!”

Unconsciously Piper moves a hand up to her face and lets her fingers run along the cannula that’s stuck to her nose, constantly providing her with fresh oxygen. “We don’t know that”, Piper’s voice is low as she faces away from her friend, and she isn’t even sure if she’s trying to convince Nicky or herself with it. Other than Nicky Piper hasn’t seen the result of what happened, she didn’t see her own reflection since being rescued from that hellhole, she avoided every mirror out of fear what she’d find, even though everybody told her that most of her superficial wounds have healed by now.

“Screw that. They got to you while you’re at hers trying to _warn_ her, for fuck’s sake!” Piper can’t argue with that. If she wouldn’t have run off to Alex’s, she wouldn’t have run into the two men from Kubra’s cartel. She wouldn’t have been attacked and they wouldn’t have been taken by them. “If you didn’t fuck her, we would’ve just arrested her as soon as we heard Trance mention her name! She would’ve told us about Kubra or not, it doesn’t matter. _You_ wouldn’t have been taken!” _A lot of_ if _and_ wouldn’t, Piper thinks to herself, and then thinks some more about what Nicky just said.

“And that makes it my fault more than hers, doesn’t it?” The low spoken question is enough to quieten Nicky. She stops her pacing and stares at Piper.

“What?”

Only now Piper looks back up to her. There’s a lot of confusion visible in her eyes, but also some kind of fear. Fear of what Piper is about to say. “ _I_ decided to warn her. _I_ committed that crime. That was an active decision, whereat anything else just… happened.”

It’s a spot-on argument, and Nicky opens her mouth, preparing herself for an answer, before simply snapping it shut again. She runs a hand through her wild mane again, before she simply vanishes out of the room, leaving Piper alone with her thoughts and the single tear that runs down her cheek.

She looks up to the IV Bag that every few seconds runs some droplets of pain med through her veins and hears laughter roaring from the television’s speakers at some joke one of the characters made.

_to be continued..._


	25. Revival II

Litchfield, New York  
Litchfield Correctional Facility  
Maximum Security  
Day 46 05:24 PM

Usually Alex would’ve been brought to the room with the many boots and the phones, the only way for visitors to communicate with the prisoners in max. No physical contact at all, not even by sharing the same air. It’s a precaution she gets completely. People usually don’t like being imprisoned, the one in max even less so. And you can smuggle a hell lot of things into prison by one simple hug.

But instead the guard brings her to a room with a single table in the middle and two chairs on either side. There’s a small camera in one corner, a red light flashing every now and then into her eyes, but otherwise the room is empty.

She moves her hands up to brush along the scars again, and hears the rustling of the cuffs and chains that tie her arms to the table.

She still wonders who would visit her here, it’s obviously not her lawyer, he wouldn’t let her wait so long, and apart from that, he’s not due to see her for another couple of days. Whoever’s standing outside of that door clearly debates with themselves if visiting Alex is a good decision at all.

And since there’re only two kinds of people who would be able to meet her in this room; her lawyer, and cops, she’s not entirely surprised to see a cop walk in.

She _is_ however shocked at _which_  cop walks in. The very first thing she sees after the door finally opens is a wild strawberry blonde colored mess of hair that probably hasn’t seen a brush since the turn of the millennium.

The mane of DEA Agent Nicole Nichols.

She doesn’t burst in, or even walk in at all. She just hovers there on the doorstep for a second, taking an obviously deep breath before she takes another step and quietly closes the door behind. But she doesn’t move farther into the room than that, she just leans against the cold steel.

It’s not hard to guess that it isn’t easy for Nicky to see Alex, let alone be in the same room, without swinging another few punches in her direction.

The agent looks everywhere but at the brunette’s face, whereat Alex’s focus solely rests on Nicky’s brown eyes. They are tired, that much is clear. Heavy bags rest below them, and the normally carefully applied mascara and eyeliner are smudged all around.

The rest of her face just seems strained. Her mouth is a thin line, and her brow is slightly burrowed, otherwise there’s no emotion to be seen, though.

Finally, Nicky’s eyes settle down from moving around the room, though they don’t find Alex, they stop at the camera still flashing the red light every few seconds, indicating that it’s happily recording the not so exciting meeting.

The agent takes two long steps until she stands in the corner right under the camera. She has to stand on the very tips of her toes before her fingers reach the technology. And with one single pull she rips the power cord out of the camera. The red light vanishes for good.

Alex gulps unconsciously and leans a bit back as the scars across her face tingle slightly, to get as much distance between herself and the now turning agent as possible. She has seen enough movies to know that nothing good ever happens once a cop disables a camera.

“You know”, Nicky begins with a very quiet voice. It doesn’t sound particularly dangerous, but mostly tired and worn out. “I’m not the most loyal person, or the most honest person, by far.” She slowly walks closer to the table, her eyes still haven’t found Alex’s as her hand brushes across the other chair. “I don’t care about a lot of things, and frankly even less about most people.” She pulls the chair back and lowers herself onto it. “There are few, though, that I consider family and therefore I value them very high.”

Alex doesn’t need a hint to know where this small talk is headed to. In their first and only meeting Nicky made it very clear that she’d do anything to protect her colleague from any harm. “Nicky”, she tries to interrupt the speech she knows is waiting just around the corner, but gets interrupted herself immediately.

“No”, suddenly her voice is very strong and stern as she moves up her hand and for the first time her eyes as well. They bore straight into her eyes and it takes all the strength Alex has left in her mind not to avert the gaze. “You don’t get to talk right now, Vause. You get to _listen_ , and that’s really more than you deserve already.”

Alex snaps her mouth shut and waits for Nicky to continue. She was wrong, her eyes aren’t just tired, they’re full of fire, a burning pitch of anger and hatred mixed with pain for another person. It’s a look she knows very well, having seen it in the mirror every day since being imprisoned.

“I knew Piper since we were both trainees, trying to become DEA agents and not just police officers. It’s both expected and strange that we ended up as friends. We came from very similar environments with only slightly differences, but our personalities always clashed. I am this sarcastic cynic who doesn’t have a care in the world and only looks out for herself, whereat she did everything by the rules and wanted to be seen as a good person. Which she always was.” Nicky chuckles for a moment, before she continues with a slight shake of her head. “As long as you didn’t push her too much. If you did, you could turn her into a greater bitch than both our mothers combined.” The agent tilts her head slightly. “But I think you already found that out yourself, didn’t you?”

Alex drops her eyes and stares blankly at her own shackled hands as those words bring her back to the day when Piper pointed her gun at her. She has almost been shot by her, because Alex pushed her, said one word too much, stopped her from fleeing the scene.

“Yeah, she told me about that. I don’t know it all, of course, but she seriously freaked out about it.” Nicky sighs deeply and for the first time since starting her rant averts her eyes again. She stares at the wall to her left for a moment, before she turns her head back. Slowly she leans closer in and drops her words a bit. “Back then she already loved you, though she didn’t admit it to me or even herself, but I saw it. She sacrificed a lot for you.”

“I fucked up”, Alex admits after a couple of silent seconds.

“Understatement of the year”, the agent scoffs. “I came here with the intend to scream at you, to blame you. To rub the awful truth right into your face, and maybe my fist, too, while I’m at it”, she trails off for a moment and Alex thinks she sees something like pity in those eyes. “But I think you do it well enough by yourself, already.”

And she isn’t wrong. Ever since Alex has seen the limp body of Piper in front of her, with blood pouring out of the severe wounds, she asked herself what would’ve happened if…

If she hadn’t met her, hadn’t kissed her, hadn’t persued her. Or if she simply had left her alone for good after finding out about her profession.

Long story short; Piper would be alive. And there hasn’t been a day since that awful night she hasn’t blamed herself for everything that happened.

Nicky pushes herself off the table and stands up. She straightens her jacket, not that it does much to improve her appearance, and runs a hand through her messy hair. “Do yourself a favor, Vause”, she says as she stares down at the brunette. “Take the deal as soon as they offer it.” Without another word she turns around and walks back to the entrance of the room, as soon as her hand touches the handle she stops again, though, to whisper a few more words. “If not for your own sake, do it for _her_.”

And then she’s just gone, and Alex is left behind, alone again, wondering what exactly Nicky was talking about just now.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Presbyterian Hospital  
Day 48 12:17 PM

Piper lifts her fork and warily looks at the mashed potatoes that stick to the warm metal. Hospital food isn’t really known for its great taste, but this time that’s not why she hesitates to dig in and eat everything at once.

Truth be told; eating makes her feel even more sick. Swallowing anything hurts in the throat and because of all the meds that she’s been on, nausea kicks in faster than light once she took a bite of anything.

“You need to eat, Piper”, Carol urges her, her hands folded neatly on her empty part of the table. She sits opposite of her daughter in the hospital’s cafeteria.

After a huge argument Piper finally managed to convince her mother to eat there instead of her own room. She is sick of staring at the same white walls for hours and hours, and so she herself help into the wheelchair and followed the smell of food until she arrived, of course with the IV-bag and a bottle of fresh oxygen supplying her with everything she needs close by.

“I’m not really hungry”, she responds and puts the fork back down, the food still untouched, apart from the bit of potato. Carol sighs deeply, but, to Piper’s surprise, doesn’t argue anymore. _Maybe miracles_ do _happen_ , she thinks as she absently eyes the people around her. She expected a big fuss from her mother about how she looks as if she hasn’t eaten in weeks - what wouldn’t really be far from the truth - but she’s definitely glad that she doesn’t have to hear it. “How is dad?”, she asks instead.

“Well”, is all her mother provides, causing the blonde to sigh in disappointment. Her father hasn’t visited her once, since she woke up, and if he visited at all before, no one is willing to tell her, and that’s a clear no.

“He can’t bear seeing you like that”, her mother told her earlier when she asked for him. But it doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t even call. And it makes Piper wonder just how much her parents know about everything that happened.

As if her mother heard her thinking, she indeed asks the question she probably wanted to ask ever since Piper woke up in the hospital. “What happened, Piper?”

“You know I can’t tell you that”, she answers truthfully. The case is still open, and as long as that doesn’t change, she isn’t allowed to talk about it, other than some superficial stuff, anyway. She’s been kidnapped and tortured, but her mother already knows that. She doesn’t know to what extent, or why.

“I told you, this job is just too dangerous for a young woman.”

Piper rolls her eyes. She waited three days for this sentence. It arrived late, but it arrived. “I live, don’t I?”, she huffs and would’ve loved to stand up and just walk away. Too bad she can’t stand properly. So she just pushes herself away from the table, turns the wheelchair around and begins to wheel out onto the hallway.

“Piper!”, her mother calls after her and promptly follows her out.

“Thanks for the visit, mother, but I’d rather rest now”, she lies to her. She can’t really rest anymore, she hasn’t done anything _but_ resting these past days, but she won’t have any of the talk she knows Carol has no doubt already prepared for.

“Of course, you do that, honey.”

After she reached her own room again, she rolls straight into the bathroom. There is something she still hasn’t done since opening her eyes for the first time after twenty three-days. She grabs the sink as strong as she can, closing her eyes. She lowers her left foot to the floor and puts some weight on it, testing it, before she pulls herself up completely.

It’s not easy and she clenches her teeth, as her whole weight is supported by the left side of her body only, her very weakened body. And even though her leg might shake visibly under her, she stands.

When she opens her eyes she looks straight at her own reflection for the first time in almost a month. Her mother’s words ring in her ears again. _He can’t bear seeing you like that._

Her fist has never smashed anything faster before.

 

.oOo.

 

Litchfield, New York  
Litchfield Correctional Facility  
Maximum Security  
Day 52 11:13 AM

It takes six days before her lawyer is visiting her again, but he’s not alone. With him is another man with balding hair and a graying mustache. He introduces himself as DEA Agent Caputo.

He eyes her from head to toe before he finally sits down on the chair in front of her. Alex can’t let go of the feeling that he already judged her for whatever reason based on whatever proof.

Her own lawyer stands right next to Alex and clasps his hands while he leans closer to her. “Mister Caputo has a proposal for you”, he whispers into her ear. Then he moves back to the door and leaves the two alone.

This must be the deal Nicky has been talking about, and suddenly Alex wonders if she had anything to do with it.

“How I understand it, Miss Vause, you have a deep insight to Kubra Balik’s network. You know of names, places, operations, transfers…”

She doesn’t answer, doesn’t even waver. Frankly, she couldn’t care less for Kubra, other than that she wishes him dead, but she knows very well that he’ll always be a huge danger for her, even behind bars, until he isn’t breathing anymore.

“We want to shut it down completely, but Mister Balik hides behind an impenetrable wall of lawyers. We will tie him down, but it will take time. And I want more than him. I want it all.”

He produces a beige folder filled with papers and spreads it out in front of Alex.

“I know you had nothing to do with Agent Chapman’s capture. The fact that you were tied to a chair and bruised, too, was quite the obvious hint that he took both of you.”

Alex shudders at the mention of Piper and lowers her eyes, only now truly acknowledging the papers in front of her. They list evidence and witness reports, as well as other information with time stamps and side notes.

“So, while we’re busy with making Kubra Balik a prisoner for life, I’d like his other employers to meet him here, too. Starting with”, he lifts a couple of papers and shoves a photo from under them closer to Alex. “Yvonne Parker.”

“Why me?”, Alex finally asks when she lifts her eyes from the photo of the woman only called Vee by most people.

“Officially? Because she duped you.”

Alex narrows her eyes at that. She knows that she couldn’t trust that woman, that she’s cold and does everything to reach the top, but she would know if she’s been duped by her. Wouldn’t she? “What do you mean?”

“She’s the only reason everything escalated.” He produces a second picture, this time from a young boy. “She used her adoptive son. He was to be taken by the police and then let your name slip.” He pulls a third photograph out, this time from an inside pocket of his jacket, though, and lays it down next to the others. Instantly Alex eyes are fixed on it and won’t move a bit. “And that’s why Chapman came running to you that evening.”

Alex closes her eyes and lets her head drop as the memories of the fight, the blood, and the painfilled screams enter her mind again. When she reopens them, Caputo watches her closely.

“Yes, I know about your relationship. Bits and pieces, anyway. And that’s the unofficial reason why I’m giving _you_ the chance for this deal.” He taps the picture with his right index. “You have the best reason to take it.”

She grabs for Piper’s photo and turns it around, so that those blue eyes aren’t staring at her anymore. “You’re wrong. I’ve got no reason left.”

He looks at her strangely for a second before he takes all the papers and photos back into the folder and stands back up. “Think about it, Miss Vause. I’ll be back in a week for your own case and hope for a positive answer.”

“Wait”, Alex stops him as he just reached the door, his fingers already grabbed for the handle, but he lets go of it as soon as the single word is whispered and turns back around. She isn’t really sure why she decided to stop him from walking away and hence fumbles for some words when the agent watches her expectantly.

“Pipes - Agent Chapman”, she swiftly corrects herself. “She was a good person, a good agent.”

Caputo cranes one brow as if he’s confused by that statement. “I’m aware.”

“Good”, she nods a couple of times. “She’d never turn on the DEA, you know that, right? She just…”, Alex trails off for a moment, taking the break to sight heavily. “Fell for the wrong person.”

“Tell me, Miss Vause, why didn’t you take her offer of turning in Leila Smith’s murderer?”

Alex tilts her head and furrows her brow. How does he even know about that offer? Piper spoke about it only once, and that was right after she almost shot the brunette. Did she play a false game after all and planned to give Alex to the feds? Why else would she tell Caputo about it? “It would’ve meant turning on Kubra.”

“You’re very loyal to him, it seems.”

“Fear tends to do that.”

“But you’re safe from him now and still won’t give him up. Even after everything he has done to you and Chapman.”

Alex opens her mouth to answer, but no word leaves her lips. She finds that she’s actually out of answers and reason, because he’s right. She has nothing left anymore that she could lose, other than her life. But her telling him everything she knows about Kubra and his cartel could actually help to lock him up for good, danger be damned.

And then there’s the delicious sweet thing named _revenge_ , of course. “What do you offer me for information?”, she finally asks with a big sigh.

“That depends on what you’re telling me and the judge”, he strokes his mustache. “Less time for yourself, witness protection. Those kind of things.”

Less time sounds well enough, Alex looks forward to a couple of years as it is now. And even though she doubts that she’ll be in a maximum security prison for those years, there’re more pleasant places to be than prison, point black.

Witness Protection means she has to cut all her old ties, but that won’t be really difficult for her. Most of the people she knows and somewhat befriended are from the cartel as well, or otherwise connected to the drug business.

“What do you want to know?”

Caputo just smiles at her and lowers himself back down into the chair.

_to be continued..._


	26. Revival III

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Presbyterian Hospital  
Day 50 10:04 AM

Piper closes her fingers into a tight fist, then opens it again. She repeats the pumping motion for a couple of times before finally her veins begin to become visible from under her bright skin.

“Very good”, the nurse says with a false happiness Piper’s gotten used to by now. “Now clench, please.”

She does as she’s been told and clenches her fingers yet again into a first. As soon as the needle is pushed through her skin and into the vein, she loosens her fingers and relaxes.

They take a blood sample from her for the second time this week now. Her doctor told her that they have to test the blood regularly to check if it carries enough oxygen and a balanced mixture of blood cells and plasma.

In Piper’s opinion it brings some variety into the otherwise dull days.

The nurse swiftly fills a small ampulla with the agent’s blood, before she pulls the needle back out and puts some pressure with a soft cotton on the very small wound and drapes a band-aid across it.

“Pressure it and bend your arm.”

Again, and as wordless as earlier, Piper does as she’s told, presses her index and middle finger on the band-aid and bends her arm.

“And that’s it for today, Miss Chapman. The doc will come by later, though.”

The blonde merely nods at the small nurse, who doesn’t seem to care at being brushed off and leaves the room with all the medical gear she brought in her hands.

“Is she finally gone?”, a voice calls out from inside the bathroom,

“Yeah, you can come out, you coward.”

“I’m no coward”, Nicky explains as she enters her room and lets the door behind her fall into the lock. “Just don’t like strangers staring at me after I took a dump.”

“I love how you never mind talking about stuff everybody else wouldn’t.”

“Cool, then you won’t mind if I ask about the mirror with the spider app?”

“I don’t know what you mean”, Piper tries to brush it off, but sadly she’s not the best liar, certainly not when she’s talking to Nicky.

“Let’s believe that for a second. There’s another problem rushing at you with full speed.” Piper just cranes a questioning brow at her colleague. “Vause.”

Piper’s eyes widen at the mention of her name. She wouldn’t have expected Nicky to ever talk about her again. “What about her?”

“What about her? Chapman, the whole internal affairs is on a warpath. They run a case against you.”

“What? Why?”, Piper sits up immediately, causing a bit of pain shooting up her spine, but she manages to ignore it well enough.

“Stop playing the dumb blonde, it doesn’t suit you”, Nicky huffs annoyed.

“They can’t do that.”

“Oh, they can, believe me. But don’t worry, Caputo’s actually on the way here to help you. Just don’t hold back the truth.” Then Nicky lowers herself into the wheelchair which is neatly parked right next to the bed, always accessible for Piper. “And not about the spider app, either.”

Piper looks away from her colleague and stares at the blank wall. “It’s nothing, Nicky.”

“So you punch mirrors for fun now?”

Truth be told, Piper doesn’t really know why she broke the mirror herself. But when she saw her own reflection; the thin face, the scrawny cheekbones, the dark circles under her eyes and the still not fully faded bruises along her skin, she reacted.

At first she didn’t even feel the stingy pain of her knuckles hitting the glass because of all the pain meds she’s on, but the strength needed to push her arm forward and break the glass caught her off-guard quite literally. Her legs gave in because her body directed all her accessible power into her fist, and she fell back into the wheelchair as soon as she connected with the mirror.

And just like that the sudden wave of anger was gone as fast as it came. Though the worry it came with only grew. Because the big question was, at what was she so angry that she felt the urge to destroy her own reflection?

“Fine, don’t tell me”, Nicky sighs when the silence takes over and is longer than mere seconds. “Just talk to me when you need to, okay?”

“Sure”, Piper mumbles, and, upon feeling Nicky intently staring at her, turns around to force a reassuring smile. “I promise.”

“Yeah, I believe it when I see it”, Nicky scoffs, but drops the matter nonetheless.

 

.oOo.

 

The next days rush past Piper in a blur. Nicky comes to visit every time during her break, sometimes even beyond it. Piper doesn’t ask her about Alex anymore, and in return Nicky won’t bring up the mirror and her somewhat _whatever_ attitude concerning everything what’s happened.

Caputo was at the hospital a couple of times as well, asking her about her relationship with Alex. How she met her, when she found out about her occupation, and what she did with that bit of information. He gathers all of it to protect her from the internal affairs, she knows it, but she can’t help feeling exposed with every truth she reveals to him.

And she doesn’t kid herself, she knows she won’t have a job anymore when all this crap is over.

“Can you push yourself up?”, the physiotherapist pulls her out of her own thoughts.

She’s currently sitting in her wheelchair in front of a set of bars. It’s her third session with the young man who’s supposed to help her getting back on her feet- literally. It’s like being a toddler again.

The first one just left her sad, as she was able to stand for barely three seconds. When she tried to take her first step forward, her knee buckled under her and she crashed down onto the not so soft ground.

The second time she got mostly frustrated with her therapist’s constant reassurances that this was normal, that it would take time for her leg to carry her weight once more. After that he made sure to swiftly tell her he didn’t mean she’d weight too much, at what she simply rolled her eyes. Even though she only looked once into the mirror - seconds before smashing it - she knows that she looks like she should _gain_ weight, rather than _lose_ it.

She grabs the bars in front of her and tightens the hold before pulling herself out of her chair. She makes sure to put most of her weight onto her good leg at first, but it’s not just her leg that’s strained by this.

Her shoulder hurts like hell from carrying part of her weight and her lungs are still complaining with every breath she takes, but eventually she stands. Her whole body is shaking, but she stands on both her feet.

“Good, now take a step.” She moves her shot leg first, as it’s easier. “Another.” She holds her breath as she slowly shifts her weight. Her left leg follows her right, and she clenches her teeth when the searing pain shoots into her knee. It takes more willpower and time than she would’ve thought, but eventually her left leg is in front of her right, holding most of her weight. “Very good”, the therapist cheers as if she was a child.

Piper wishes she could just throw a punch at him and shut him up for good. But she wouldn’t even make it close enough to reach him without falling face first to the ground.

Instead, she lets out an exaggerated breath and moves her right foot in front of her left. She tightens her hold onto the bars and tenses her muscles before she shifts her weight onto her right leg once more. But this time it’s too much, her knee buckles without being asked, and her hands slip off the bars.

She doesn’t even fully notice that she falls before she crashes, landing mostly on her left side. She barely stifles the yelp, but instead accidently bites her own tongue, drawing some blood.

The therapist has already begun moving as soon as he noticed the slight buckle of her knee, and kneels down beside her to help her back up. As soon as he touches her arm, though, she snarls at him.

“Don’t touch me.” He raises his hands defensively and backs off, observing her miserable try to stand up on her own. She pushes herself up on her hands, but as soon as she wants to move weights on her legs, her body gives in once more. “Fuck this shit!”, she screams and punches the floor beneath her like an angry toddler, causing another wave of pain to shoot through her body.

“Miss Chapman”, the therapist whispers barely audible as she tries to stifle the sobs. She won’t break down. No, not here, not now. Not after everything she’s been through. _I won’t let him win_ , she thinks, before feeling a pair of hands carefully pulling at her body and lifting her up, carrying her back into her wheelchair.

 

.oOo.

 

“You screamed at your therapist?”, Nicky asks from behind with a smirk as she visits Piper the next day.

Piper sits in her wheelchair in front of the window and stares at the blue sky. It’s a cloudless day, with the sun shining brightly. The sight alone makes her skin prickle with the feeling of warmth, even though it’s still cold outside. “What makes you think that?”

“Ah, dunno, maybe I have some kind of superpower? Though it could be ‘cause the therapist told me.”

“Isn’t that confidential or something?”

Nicky offers only a shrug and walks up to Piper. She stands to her left and leans down on her healthy shoulder. “The hearing will be in two weeks”, she changes the topic.

The blonde looks up to look at the colleague, who’s now the one to stare at nothing in the outside world. “Mine or Kubra’s?”

“Kubra’s, of course.”

Piper nods and looks back outside. “What does Caputo want me to say at the testimony?”

“What is needed to put Kubra away for good. I’m sure he’ll run it by you before”, Nicky sighs and turns her head, staring down at the other agent. “Are you ready to face your demons, Chapman?”

“I’ve got no demons”, she rolls her eyes, but isn’t quite sure who she’s trying to convince.

“No, you only have a kingpin who tortured you, who you must look in the eye and testify against.”

 

.oOo.

 

“Okay, let’s go through it again.”

Piper sighs, heavily and bored beyond she ever thought possible. She’s gone through it more often than she cared to count by now, but the slight raise of Caputo’s eyebrows tells her that he actually wants another round.

And so she tells him what happened again, beginning of how she woke up in the basement, with nothing but darkness surrounding her, chained to the ceiling. She skips the part of how she landed there in the first place, as Caputo asked her to concentrate fully on Kubra and his part in all of this.

Once she reaches the point she was dragged into the god forsaken room and placed in front of Alex, she hesitates, thinking of her once more. She still hasn’t had any more news about the brunette other than that she’s alive and well. Caputo, sensing her mind drifting off-topic, urges her to continue, and so she does.

She tells him again how she was asked questions, shot, strangled, and drifted in and out of consciousness, until the next thing the remembers is waking up twenty-three days later.

“Want another round?”, she drawls sarcastically with an exaggerated sigh, earning an amused smirk from the chief.

“Do you feel annoyed by this?”

“Yes.”

“Very good”, he replies and for a moment Piper isn’t sure if he does all of this to mess with her or if there’s actually a good reason for boring her to death with all of this. “Go on, again.”

 

.oOo.

 

Litchfield, New York  
Litchfield Correctional Facility  
Maximum Security Prison  
Day 69 04:23 AM

Alex can’t stifle the yawn that escapes her mouth. It must be the forth within the past two minutes, but it’s not her fault for being woken at four in the morning, after she couldn’t really get any good sleep to begin with. Not this night, or the one before, or before.

The last weeks have been a blur of waking up, eating, speaking to DEA Agent Caputo, another cop, or her lawyer, and going back to sleep. She doesn’t remember much else, hasn’t really talked to any of the other inmates, not even her cellmates who never seemed to mind, though.

Today will be different though. She was told to stand ready at half past four, so that a correctional officer of this lovely establishment would escort her to a vehicle and drive her off to court, to testify against Kubra Balik, druglord and kingpin. Her former employer and most recently kidnapper.

She sighs and drops her forehead against the cold bars of her cell, listening to the soft snoring of the other women around.

“Vause”, a strangely soft voice sounds right next to her, causing her to jump away from the bars and open her eyes wide. On the opposite of the bars that frame her cell stands the young correction officer Fischer, with her usual somewhat pitiful look plastered all over her face. Oh, how she hates that look. “You packed your stuff?”

Alex scoffs at the question as she lets go of the bars. “Sure, my suitcase is just over there, right next to my four-poster bed and walk-in-closet.”

Fischer immediately grimaces at the snarky answer once she realized the absurdity of her own question, but doesn’t comment any more. She simply rustles with her set of keys and opens the cell door, stepping inside and holding a pair of cuffs out. As if Alex would try anything.

With another sigh she holds her hands out and lets herself being cuffed, before she’s lead out of the cell, and then the building, right into a small prison-van.

The drive to the town is long and more often than not Alex drifts off to unconsciousness. Her sleep is restless though, even more so than the other nights. Every time her mind slips away, it goes a dark path, reminding her of all that happened, about the pain she felt herself and the pain she inflicted on Piper.

Once she’s arrived, Alex is lead and then practically shoved into the court. The door is closed and locked behind her, but the hall is empty. “Hello?”, she calls out with a barely audible voice, not trusting herself or the silence around her.

Suddenly there’s a deep laugh and Alex swirls around only to stare right into Kubra’s eyes. He’s holding a gun at her head, a devilish smile on his face. In fact, his whole appearance is more that of a creature from hell than an actual human being.

Her whole body begins to shiver especially as his hand moves to another form, lying on the floor to his right. Blonde hair, blue, trembling eyes, blood everywhere.

“Don’t do it”, she whispers, and Alex doesn’t even understand what she’s talking about. “Don’t”, she pleads again and holds out a hand. Blood drips from the tips of her fingers, emitting a sickening sound every time another drop touches the wooden floor.

“It’s your choice. She lives, or she dies. Simple as that”, Kubra’s voice crashes into her ears with full force, he sounds like an erupting volcano, destroying everything in its path.

And only then Alex feels the cold steel in her hands, feels her finger hovering above a trigger, softly bumping it every few seconds, almost enough to pull it all the way.

“I’m sorry”, she whispers as her eyes never leave the pleading blues and squeezes her finger.

With a gasp Alex jerks out of her sleep another time, her cuffed hands rush up to her own skin, gripping her chin where seconds ago a bullet ran through muscle and brain, killing her in an instant.

Frantically her eyes move around in the small van, searching for something familiar, for someone, until she realizes that she won’t find her here. Or anywhere. She can’t. Won’t ever again. Her hand drops into her lap, and she sighs as her head falls back against the wall with a clang.

She’s going to testify. And she’ll do everything she can to see this bastard behind bars.

 

.oOo.

 

Hours later the van finally comes to a halt at the court house. The doors are opened and the cold air of April’s always changing weather breezes into the tiny space.

“Get out”, the gruff voice of her driver orders.

Slowly Alex gets up from the bench, causing her spine to crack in several places from the uncomfortable position. She shuffles to the door and carefully drops out of the van and onto the floor.

She hoped to see a bit of New York again, but instead is met with nothing but brick walls. The van parked in a garage below, and the sight out of the garage door is the only few she’s granted of the town she lived in.

She doesn’t really have time to think about it though. When she just stands there, a big hand grabs her arm and yanks her forward. “Move”, he orders again, shoving her into the direction of another door, deeper into the house.

At one point shortly after a cop takes over and leads her through the halls until he tells her to sit down and wait. And so she does, sits on the wooden bench and waits, gazing ahead at a glass door and beyond, without focusing on anything.

That is until something catches her eye. Something wild and colored in strawberry-blonde. Alex narrows her eyes as Nicole Nichols crosses the hall behind the door, only to turn around with a huge smile, saying something.

The first thing Alex sees of Nicky’s collocutor are feet, mere inches above the ground. Then there are the wheels of a wheelchair, and in it a thin form, clad in a pantsuit with long blonde hair tucked away into a neat ponytail.

“Piper?”, Alex breathes with wide eyes and rushes to her feet so fast that the edges of her vision begin to darken. “Piper!”, she calls out this time, but she doesn’t hear her. She’s gone again, having been rolled out of vision by Nicky. She wants to run after her, but the officer grabbed her arm as soon as she got to her feet, without her even noticing. “You’re alive.”

_to be continued..._


	27. Courage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we start with the chapter I'd just like to state that I have absolutely no idea about how a court works. I barely know of the jurisdiction in Germany, but I've absolutely no clue about the whole process in the USA. So please don't jump my throat if things are highly inaccurate and bear in mind that this is still fiction.

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Supreme Court Building  
Day 69 01:07 PM

Her palms begin to sweat as soon as Kubra is lead into the room. He is cuffed, but outside of the prison attire, instead he wears a gray suit that looks very expensive. Probably Hugo Boss, Versace, or some other fancy shit.

His eyes land on her for a second, but she can’t figure out what they mean. He seems so emotionless. But as soon as they travel down a few feet, his lips form a smirk that causes a shiver to run down her spine.

Piper grips the wheels of her wheelchair harder and tries her best not to break eye contact first, with what she actually succeeds, though only because Kubra is forced to face away from her and to the judge instead.

“You okay, blondie?” Piper visibly flinches, not having expected her colleague to whisper anything. She was too concentrated on staring at Kubra.

“What?”, she turns her head over to the other agent who grimaces at her.

“You know… You don’t have to do this. All you said is on paper, it won’t matter if you walk away.”

“Yes, it would.” Piper nods firmly, more to herself than anything else. She looks back forward to where Kubra has finally sat down and the judge begins to list the crimes he’s being charged with.

It feels like hours before she is called forward. Taking a deep breath, she nods to Nicky that she’s ready, and lets herself being pushed to the witness stand. When she’s at Kubra’s height, Nicky stops the wheelchair and Piper carefully heaves herself out of it and accepts the clutches from her colleague.

They agreed that it wouldn’t be save for her to leave the wheelchair at home, so they made a compromise. She would walk, as well and tall as she could, up to the stand and prove to that fucking asshole that he didn’t succeed in breaking her.

Every step sends waves of pain through her whole body, but it’s worth the look of distaste on Kubra’s face as she turns around and stares at him.

They let her swear to tell the truth, ask her to state her name and do all the other rest protocol wants from her. She has seen and done this often enough to answer the first few questions automatically. Only when the prosecutor begins to asks specific things, she begins to hesitate.

“It began on February eleventh, when we found drugs at JFK”, Piper begins. She was asked to talk about the case, but she knows that sooner or later questions about her relationship to Alex will arise. Well, her career is pretty much shattered anyway, with internal investigating against her. Nobody interrupts her the whole time, and not once she mentions Alex. But at one point, she will have to talk about her.

“Why did Mister Balik kidnap you when you not even once made the connection?”

 _And here we go…_ “Because of Alex Vause. That I met her was pure coincidence and had nothing to do with my work. We… hit off and began to see each other.”

“You pursued a romantic relationship?”

“We pursued _something_ at least. I didn’t know her connection to the drug business until later, because of another coincidence. An informant heard me talking about her and thought it would be about the job. I visited her a few days later and confronted her. She didn’t deny.”

“What happened then?”

“I asked her to testify against the murderer of Leila Smith, but she was too afraid.”

“And you just walked away from it?”

Piper hesitates with her answer. She did just that, but could she just admit that she let a criminal go? Her eyes roam the room until they meet Nicky, who gives her nothing but an encouraging nod. “Love lets you to stupid things”, she finally says, earning a small smile from her colleague.

“You were kidnapped from her apartment, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Why were you there?”

“A boy named her in relation to a drug cartel during an official interrogation”, she closes her eyes, thinking back to the fear she felt as soon as the name was spoken. She was so shocked, she didn’t even think, but ran straight out. “I wanted to warn her.”

“You were ready to help a criminal? To sacrifice your career for her?”

“I hoped I could reason with her, I hoped she’d come with me and testify against Kubra.”

“But she didn’t?”

“I never got the chance to ask”, she admits and tells everyone in the room what exactly happened in that apartment, from how she was blindsided, to the bullets she shot into Aydin’s body, and when Alex tried to help her. “Next thing I know is waking up, being chained to the ceiling.”

Her stomach coils remembering the conversation she overheard from the two guys, about how they hoped she would still be asleep, because she’d suffer as soon as she woke up. And how right they turned out to be.

“I was able to free myself, but I didn’t get far. Kubra’s men caught me and brought me to where Alex was held.”

“What happened.”

“I”, Piper trails off. The images of the gun pointed at Alex’s head flash in her mind. The other gun in her hand, held towards her shoulder. She told her to do it, she told her to shoot, because she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Alex hurt instead of her.

The pain rushes back into her body in an instant, her shoulder aches and she’s pretty sure she’d fall to the ground if she wouldn’t be sitting already. She was so sure she could do this, she talked to Caputo about it so often, but now, as her gazes shifts to Kubra, she smells the blood, her own blood.

“Miss Chapman?”

“I’d rather not”, she admits, and she wants to vomit at seeing the smirk on Kubra’s face. That fucking smirk. He’s going to prison, his life is over, and yet, in this aspect, he has won. She can hear him laugh at her, as if it’s still happening, one second he’s like a loving father, the next your greatest nightmare. “You have my testimony?”

“Yes”, the prosecutor answers, holding up a block of papers which hold her words written down, she signed everything.

“Then read it, please.” And he does, he reads everything she said. Every little detail she ever mentioned.

When it’s all done, and Piper is dismissed, she hobbles back to her wheelchair, she doesn’t even wait for Nicky before she just rolls out of the courtroom.

It doesn’t even matter that with each word the prosecutor read, Kubra’s face grew darker and darker. All she thinks about now is that he crushed her. He won.

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Supreme Court Building  
Day 69 04:47 PM

“You do affirm that all the testimony you are about to give in the case now before the court will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; this you do affirm under the pains and penalties of perjury?”

“I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me god”, the words are more whispered than anything else, but nobody complains once Alex has lowered her hand and sat down. The first thing she does is having her eyes roam the court room, searching for familiar faces. For one face in particular, with long, blonde hair. But she can’t find it, neither does she see the wild mane of Nicky, which she definitely wouldn’t miss. They weren’t here. Maybe they never were, maybe it was just a trick her mind played on her, when she saw her earlier from across the hall.

“Please state your full name for the protocol.”

She clears her throat, trying to mask that she hasn’t listened to anything that was being said. “Alex Vause.” _Yes, that’s right, you idiots_ , she thinks upon seeing some confused faces, _Alex is not short for anything._

“Would you please state what your role in Mister Balik’s organization was?”, the prosecutor, a man in his late forties with greying, but otherwise full hair, is the first to question her.

“I was an importer.”

“Please elaborate.”

She sighs and looks down at her fingers which tap a random rhythm on the wood. “I organized the smuggle of heroin into the country and of money out of the country.”

“How did you do that?”

“By using mules who would carry suitcases across the borders.”

“What kind of mules?”

Suddenly Alex feels like this is about her as much as about Kubra. She hasn’t had a closed court herself, her sentence was not yet clarified, it would all be done after today, after she finished testifying against that bastard, but now she fears that all she says will be used against her, too. “Women, early twenties, who wanted to see the world.”

“One of those women was”, the prosecutor browses through his mountain of papers before he finds the name he’s looking for. “Leila Smith, is that correct?”

A picture from the past flashes in front of her vision, she hears the girl begging for mercy, asking for help, _her_ help. Help she refused, because she knew to never cross Kubra.

“Miss Vause?”, he pushes and she nods the tiniest of nods. “Please vocalize your answer for the protocol.”

“Yes, Leila Smith was one of the mules.”

“Leila Smith was found dead on February seventeenth at the docks of the Bayonne harbor in New Jersey”, he elaborates to the judge and probably also for the protocol. Everything seems to be about the protocol here. “She was abducted sometime in the night from the eleventh to the twelfth and was shot dead, before dumped in the river. Can you confirm this, Miss Vause?”

A gunshot rings out, suddenly everything is silent around her, the picture of red snow burns itself into her eye. “Yes. Kubra killed her for running away from the airport and letting the heroin being found.”

“Did he kill her personally, or did he order it?”

She looks up from her fingers and into the dark eyes of Kubra. They are filled with hatred. A kind of hatred she has never seen, not towards her. To her he was always nice. Or as nice as he could be. “He pulled the trigger.”

“Did he kill others as well?”

She thinks back to all the years she has worked for Kubra and to all the death she has seen. There were only few executions she saw herself, and even fewer he’s done himself, but she knew of so many more. And so she tells them all what she remembers, up to the point of Leila Smith.

“Thank you, Miss Vause. I know, it must be hard, if you need a break-”

“No”, she interrupts his speech. “Please, just… Just continue.”

“Very well. Back to your own role in Mister Balik’s organization. Your job was to recruit mules. Was Piper Chapman one of them?”

Her eyes snap up at the prosecutor so fast that it actually hurts her. “No”, she answers, her voice having never been so firm in this room until now. She knew that sooner or later Piper would come up in his line of questioning, but she didn’t expect that. How dare he even suggest that.

“Did you try to recruit her?”

“Never.”

“Then please elaborate what she was to you.”

“How das that matter here?”

“Miss Vause, please remain calm. We wish to understand how Miss Chapman fits into the story.”

 _Into the story_ , Alex scoffs inwardly. Piper was killed. Or almost killed. Or whatever it is now her mind decides to settle on, and he calls it a fucking _story_.

“Did you know she’s with the DEA?”, he pushes again upon realizing that Alex won’t answer his former question.

“No, not at first.”

“When did you find out?”

She closes her eyes, remembering the fear she felt when she read those three tiny letters. How much angst a small abbreviation printed onto a jacket could cause. “The night I first… Stayed at her house.”

“And you were at her house, because…”

She sighs, seems like he’ll get his answer after all. “Because we were lovers.”

“How long have you known her by then?”

“A week.” Now that she said that out loud, it sounds kind of ridiculous. They’ve known each other barely a week before everything already began to go to shit, and yet there wasn’t a day since she met her that she hasn’t thought about the blonde.

“Did you know she was investigating against you?”

“I found that out the same night. Though she didn’t know I had anything to do with it, yet.”

“What did you do then?”

Alex smells the pancakes which Piper made the next morning. She already sensed that something was wrong with Alex, she could see it in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. Not until Alex did. “I tried to break the contact and forget her.”

“I guess it didn’t work out.”

“We saw each other again three days later. She turned up at my apartment, demanding to talk.”

“Talk about what?”, he presses once more.

“She found out I’m a drug dealer”, Alex responds with a shrug, as if it wouldn’t matter at all. More she doesn’t offer though. What was said and done during those hours in her apartment were private.

“Did she came to arrest you?”

Alex hesitates for a second. Whatever she says now, won’t just affect Kubra and her, it will also affect Piper’s reputation. “She might have, I am not sure. She offered me to testify as an informant.”

“Did you accept?”

“No”, Alex admits. In hindsight it’s easy to say it was definitely the wrong choice to do, but back then it was a sensible decision. The world in the cartel hasn’t turned to shit, that only happened days later.

“And she walked away and let you off the hook?”

“She walked away to think about what to do. I guess she hoped I would change my mind and gave me time for it to do.”

“Is that why she came to your apartment a week afterwards?”

“She didn’t really have time to clarify why she came over”, Alex points out. She learned why she really came afterwards because Agent Caputo told her the reason, but she won’t say that here as long as she doesn’t have to. Telling in front of a judge that a DEA agent came to warn her because she was about to being arrested, would be far to dumb. And technically, withholding a detail which wasn’t specifically asked about is not lying, right?

“That is the evening you two were abducted by Kubra’s men.”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I can’t say. When I came to the scene, everything already happened, I only remember being hit and losing consciousness.” And the blood, she remembers so much blood on the floor.

“What is the first thing you remember after that?”

The smell of cigar smoke hits her nostrils. “Kubra sitting in front of me.” And then she explains everything they talked about. Of how he thought she was a rat, of what he has done to Billy, she even tells him that she was allowed to see Piper and wasn’t sure if she was even alive, hanging there from the ceiling.

Tears begin to form in her eyes as soon as she reaches the part that has Piper sitting in front of her, alive, breathing, talking. With a gun to her head.

“Miss Chapman was tortured by Kubra in front of your eyes?”

“Yes and no”, Alex admits with a sob, remembering how it was her who pulled the trigger. “He forced me to shoot her.” She tells him about the things he threatened to do and about what he had her do. She tells him how Juri strangled her. “He wanted her to feel every bit of pain she inflicted on one of Kubra’s men.”

The court was dead silent by now. The whole time a monotone murmuring went with her story telling, nothing disturbing, but still loud enough to be there, acknowledged by her subconscious. Now though, everyone is quiet, and that is creepier than the memories themselves.

“What happened then?”

“He realized that he was wrong the whole time. That I’ve never betrayed him and Piper never knew he was behind all of this. He realized that the only reason the DEA now knows where to look and who to blame was he himself. Then he”, she hesitates again, remembering the lifeless form of the blonde, slumped in her chair. She hears Nicky pleading her to wake up and then punching Alex in the face, yelling at her. “He shot her. That was right before the cops stormed the basement.”

 

.oOo.

 

New York City, New York  
Manhattan  
Supreme Court Building  
Day 69 07:13 PM

“Would you give me a moment, Nicky?”, Piper pleads with a whispered tone, staring to the other side of the room where a figure crouches in a corner, head down, non the wiser that they are observed by the two agents.

“Technically we’re not even allowed to be here, let alone have you talk to her”, Nicky reminds her with a stern voice. “Especially alone.”

Normally her colleague wouldn’t be so righteous, and it bugs Piper the same way as it flatters her right now. Because she knows that Nicky only says that to protect her.

“Technically I don’t care”, she huffs and turns to her best friend, locking her eyes on hers. “Just five minutes. Nobody will notice.”

“Famous last words”, she mutters under her breath but then nods to the lone woman, giving her permission, and crosses her arms over her chest before she turns around and leaves the hall.

With a final deep breath Piper pushes her wheelchair forward and slowly rolls up to the brunette. The wheels screech slightly, but the other woman never raises her head, not even when Piper stops right in front of the bars. Only when she whispers a greeting to her, she gets a reaction.

“Alex?”

Agonizingly slow she raises her head. Her long hair hides most of her face, but Piper can see the dark eyes behind it, as well as the plush lips, forced into a thin line.

“It is so good to see you”, Piper’s voice cracks with emotions and already she feels tears prick at her eyes, threatening to fall and run down her cheeks.

The blonde reaches out with her hand, wanting to touch Alex, not even caring where, she just wants to feel her skin, vibrating with her heartbeats and breathing. But upon seeing that her face hasn’t changed in the slightest from the expressionless look, she halts. Her fingers hover in front of the bars, before settling them at least. She grasps the steel so hard her knuckles turn white and waits for the other woman to say something. Anything.

“You never visited”, the words are raw and Piper isn’t sure if it’s because of the strained voice of the brunette, or because of what they mean.

Guilt settles in her stomach and her eyes drop to her own feet. She wanted to leave that damned hospital and visit the brunette so often, but wasn’t allowed, not by anybody. Maybe she didn’t try hard enough. “I couldn’t.”

“I know”, is the only answer she receives and somehow those two words make it even worse. “I knew that you would visit if you could”, she continues, her eyes roaming the wheelchair Piper’s sitting in. “But it was because I thought”, Alex chokes on her own words as a small sob escapes her lips.

Finally the brunette reaches out, moves her hand between the bars and further until her fingers brush the smooth skin of Piper’s face. Piper moves her other hand up as well, pressing it at Alex’s hand, forcing the contact, too afraid that she’ll just let go again.

“I thought you were dead.”

“What?”, is all Piper can force out from between her trembling lips. Alex thought... She thought she died that night? Slowly she shakes her head, her brain trying to grasp on the meaning of this. If the brunette believed her dead, she also must’ve blamed herself. She must’ve thought that _she_ was the one to kill her.

“You lost so much blood”, Alex is crying now, Piper can hear it in her voice even though she lowered her eyes before closing them completely. “And then you were just gone, didn’t respond anymore, I thought…”

“I’m alive”, Piper’s voice is quiet, but strong. She squeezes the hand that is still pressed against her cheek as if to remind Alex that she is real. With a small clang Alex’s head drops forward against the bars that separate the two women.

“I know”, she whispers back, her voice still wet, and Piper lets her cry silently for a moment. She’ll give her a chance to calm down, and to sort her own thoughts.

There is no need for more words right now, so they just sit there, both with their eyes closed, listening to the short breathing sounds, occasionally interrupted by a wet hiccup, to remind them that they’re both alive and real.

And safe.

 

.oOo.

 

“You told her I died”, Piper accuses Nicky as soon as the two partners sit alone in the car. She doesn’t particularly like to pick a fight with her friend, especially not in a closed off environment where none of them can escape, but the anger began to boil inside of her as soon as she realized a very important thing. Nicky knew she lived, and Nicky talked to Alex before the hearing.

“What?”, to her credit, the other agent sounds genuinely confused.

“Don’t you dare play dumb about this”, Piper growls. “For a _month_ she thought I died and blamed herself. She thought she killed me!”

“Well, suits her right.”

Piper isn’t sure who is more shocked as the slap echoes in the car. Probably she herself, because as she stares at her colleague with her eyes and mouth wide open, not quite believing that she actually hit her friend, Nicky just stares ahead at the road with the skin on her cheek reddening in the form of Piper’s hand.

“Don’t”, Nicky mumbles as soon as the blonde takes a breath to ready herself for the much needed apology. “Don’t apologize if you don’t mean it.”

“But I didn’t mean to hit you.”

“The pain begs to differ”, Nicky jokes, but the humor doesn’t quite reach Piper, who simply sinks back into the seat and gazes out of the window to her right. “I didn’t tell her you died”, she clarifies.

“Okay.” Piper doesn’t say anything else, she already senses the _but_ that will follow the statement, but it’s not the time to push. Nicky will tell her what exactly happened between those two. All she needs is to give her time.

“But I might have had her think it…”

“How?”

“She didn’t specifically say that she thought you died, but… she sounded like it.”

“And instead of clarifying”, Piper sighs, shaking her head.

“Don’t hit me again, but if you ask me, she _really_ deserved to feel a bit of pain. She may not have killed you, but for two minutes you _were_ dead, Chapman.” Nicky sighs when Piper remains silent, turning back to the window and avoids any bit of eye contact. “I know you think she’s not at fault. And I know she’s not at fault for _shooting_ you, at least. But if it weren’t for her, nothing of this would’ve happened.”

“Déjà vu, Nicky”, Piper mutters and refers to the conversation they had in the hospital, where they already discussed whose fault about what.

“I promised her I would kill her if she ever hurt you, Piper”, the use of her first name got the blonde’s attention. She recalls that Nicky said something similar before, but thought of it as a joke. The way she said it now, though. It sounds way to dark and honest to be a bad joke. And she never uses her first name, except for the very rare, very serious occasions.

“That is kind of sweet, in a very scary way.”

“I nearly did.”

“Say again?”

“When we found you, you were unconscious, I couldn’t read a pulse. I didn’t even realize she was there, too, until she called out my name”, Nicky trails of, casting a sideway glance to Piper to see if she’s still listening, and she is. Piper has her eyes firmly fixed on Nicky and breathes so low that she might as well not at all. “And then I lost it. I punched her straight in the face and didn’t stop. I screamed I’d kill her and if it weren’t for Piscitella, I probably would’ve.”

“That’s why we’re friends. We’re both fucked up.”

Nicky can’t help but snort at the sincerity with which Piper says those words. “That we are. At least Alex fits right in.”

“So, you’re okay with it?”, Piper smiles.

“As far as I’m concerned, she paid her debt”, Nicky shrugs. “And as much as I hate to admit it, that one time I saw you two together even I could see that you’re awfully perfect for each other.”

 

.oOo.

 

Litchfield, New York  
Litchfield Correctional Facility  
Minimum Security  
Day 85 12:37 PM

Life is far from perfect right now. But it’s just as far from awful, too. Since the hearing five weeks have passed. As part of her deal, Alex’s sentence was reduced from a shitload to still way too long, but bearable. Apart from that she got transferred to the minimum security area of Litchfield, which means more rights in her lawless world of just suffering.

She’d love to say the words _I’m okay now_ , but they wouldn’t be true. She’s better, though. Everything has been better since the hearing, since she saw proof that she hadn’t killed Piper like she thought. The blonde was hurt very much and still needs tons of therapy to get her legs working properly, but she lives, and is better as well.

She also never lost her job, as she assured her. She’s still under suspension, of course, but they won’t kick her out. She said something about a political fuckup and a medial outbreak it would cause to fire the agent who was, albeit in a very shitty way, the sole reason for arresting one of the biggest kingpins to rule over the USA. Instead she’ll have long weeks of desk duty and rookie sitting to look forward to.

Alex on the other hand is very much unemployed of course, apart from her prison job which is washing the dirty laundry of her fellow prisoners, earning nine cents an hour or something like that. She doesn’t really care, and although the occupation is anything but to her liking, it helps pass the time.

But not today, since today is Saturday. Visitation day.

When she was in maximum security, no one ever visited her, apart from her lawyer and Agent Caputo. And Nicky, that one time that scared the shit out of her. Who would’ve thought such a small woman with such a foul mouth could be so terrifying? She was like a mother bear whose cub was in danger.

She didn’t even talk to anybody over the phone, not that she knew who to call in the first place. Now though she hears voices from outside the prison world multiple times a week and even sees their faces every Saturday and sometimes Sunday.

She smiles to herself as she hears her name being called out, announcing a visitor and puts the book back into the shelf.

“Your girl again?”, Poussey asks as Alex passes her walking out of the library.

“I guess so.”

“You’re damn lucky, sasquatch. One day you’ve gotta tell me how you scored a cop, tho.”

Alex just shakes her head at her. Poussey always asked about that, and she doesn’t even know who blabbered to her that Piper is a cop. Or agent, or whatever. What she does know is that Poussey is friends with Taystee, though, and Taystee was caught in the backlash Kuba’s arrest caused inside of his operation as well.

Where Taystee might’ve heard of it, she can’t think of either, but she doesn’t care. As long as none of the girls gives her shit about her girlfriend being a federal agent, she’s fine with them knowing. _This isn’t Oz_ , she reminds herself and keeps walking to the visitation room.

Looking through the window she can already see Piper sitting there, fidgeting with a loose strand that fell out of her messy pony tail. She looks nothing like the always put together agent she knew before all of this shit happened, but she loves the messy version of Piper just the same. And she looks so much better than the broken version she has seen after court, when bars already separated the two from each other.

By now her bruises have vanished and the cuts have faded into thin, barely-there scars. She isn’t dependent on her wheelchair anymore either. She still needs crutches if she wants to walk more than a few meters, but otherwise she can stand safely and limp everywhere she wants. However, they don’t talk about what happened in that basement, or about their testimonies. It was a silent, unspoken agreement, made with just _one_ look when they first saw each other in this very room. One day they will have to face it, but they will put it off for as long as they can.

As soon as she walks into the room and the blonde notices her, her face lightens up and she rushes to her feet, immediately embracing her in a tight hug and greeting her with a longing kiss.

“Okay, that’s enough, Vause”, Officer Bell says from behind the desk she’s sitting at, reading today’s newspaper. She hasn’t even once looked up from the article, but knew just when to call out all the same. “Vause!”, she calls again, and finally Alex pulls her lips away from the blonde, which causes a sour groan. Alex brushes her thumb across the thin scar on the blonde’s lip, before pulling away completely.

“Oh, just when it was starting to get fun”, another voice chimes in, and surprised Alex turns around to see Nicky standing behind her, munching on a few pretzels. Without hesitation she hugs the smaller woman as well before they all sit down at the small table.

“Not that I mind, but what are you doing here?”, Alex asks Nicky first before anything else can be said. The two have found a sort of common ground after a very long talk on the phone and then later in person. The fact that they both feel the need to protect Piper and give her only the best, sort of bound them together. And they found that they actually enjoy each other’s company, as long as they aren’t trying to kill each other.

“I actually bring good news that might interest you”, Nicky offers with a small smile and waits until Alex urges her to continue. “I’ve spoken to a friend who knows a friend and… Well, thing is. Fahri is well and alive.”

Alex’s eyes widen in an instant. She never knew what happened to Fahri until Piper filled her in after the court, knowing who the man was to her. Kubra had him shot, but nobody could explain why, and he himself never offered that bit of information. He was on the brink of death for weeks, even worse than Piper, and hasn’t woken up from a deep coma since the surgery. Alex always suspected he wanted to help them. Him entering Piper’s cell was part of the reason for all of this mess, after all.

“He woke up and decided to testify against the asshole.” _The asshole_ being Kubra. Nicky decided to not call him by his name and instead always refers to him as _the asshole_. “Turns out Piper strangling the shit out of that poor man was completely unnecessary, he wanted her to get free.”

“That’s awesome”, Alex whispers with a huge smile, truly and genuinely happy about Fahri’s wellbeing. “But Piper could’ve told me that, too.”

“She needed a driver”, Nicky shrugs and earns a stern glance from Piper for that. “I told you she wouldn’t buy that as a reason.” Seems like she didn’t want Alex to know.

“Your leg’s getting worse?”

“It’s nothing”, Piper assures her and, as if to prove, moves her leg up and down. “See? The doc just told me to rest more.”

Deciding to drop the matter, Alex deflects it with some humor. “I bet that talk went well.”

“Insults where shared”, Piper shrugs it off with a half smile half smirk, causing Alex to laugh. “What do you think of Bali?”, the blonde then asks, out of the blue.

“What?”

“I thought when you’re out, we could make a trip.”

“Pipes… When I’m out”, _which will be in several months, despite all the testifying,_ she adds in her head. “I’ll have no money to visit any island, apart from Rhode or Long Island.”

“That is a worry for then”, she smiles at her and Alex can’t help but smile, too. “Just answer the question? I’m happy with other places, too. Paris? Even though it’s so cliché.”

She won’t kid herself, life will be fucking hard once she’s out of prison. Everything she had and was used is just… poof, gone. She has been one of Kubra’s little minions for ten years, she had a safe and very high income for just as long. And now she will find herself doing a regular job, like regular people.

She can’t even begin with imagining herself in that position, but she’ll have to try, there’s not really another way around. Or she could search herself another kingpin, but she won’t even joke about that option.

But it won’t really matter, because, despite the one-eighty turn her life took and is about to take, she’ll have someone by her side, someone who won’t just leave her if things get rough. If anything, that one night has proven just that.

“I heart you”, she whispers to Piper, just to help ease her own worries. She won’t think about the future now, not as long as she has a present that she likes.

“I heart you, too.”

Nicky just rolls her eyes at the scene, pops another couple of pretzels into her mouth and mutters something that sounds very close to _fucking dyke drama_.

_the end...  
or is it?_


	28. Epilog

Somewhere in Illinois  
Sometime in 2014

He has spent months in the tiny cell by himself. The whole process was surprisingly short, considering how often shit like that could go on for months or years. But with him the judge only needed a few weeks before he was sentenced to a life behind bars.

His ever present smirk vanished as soon as he heard the judge speaking those words. His lawyer only sighed and shook his head, before leaning closer to one of his colleagues. They talked in quiet voices, none of which he understood, not that he listened. His eyes and overall attention were still fixed on the old man in front of him, who swung the hammer down and closed the court for the very last time.

That day they brought him to Chicago, where he would begin his life behind bars, more figuratively than literally, since his cell doesn’t have any bars. It’s all solid stone walls and steel doors.

At least he has no one to share his nine square feet room, or however small it is. They thought him too dangerous to put him with anybody else, so solitary confinement it was.

It’s his ninth month behind bars now, and he has enough of it. He had enough of it after the first second, but by now all he wants is to get out of here. He still has stuff to do, after all. He has a revenge to plot, can’t do that properly behind bars.

He talked to his lawyer in private, and asked him to deliver a message.

There’s one good thing about being the leader of a worldwide drug cartel. It doesn’t matter how much they try, they’ll never destroy all of it. A cartel with a good leader and great organization is like a hydra. You can hurt it, you can cut off its head. But someday, somewhere, a new head will simply pop up and bite you in the ass, even stronger than before. And that day has come.

As planned, the bus that is supposed to bring him and a couple of fellow inmates to another facility halts in the middle of the woods.

“Why are stopping?”, one of the officers calls to the front, where the driver rants some curses at the engine.

“Fucking thing just broke.” _Just as planned_ , he smirks to himself and nods to the officer, who nods back and slowly makes his way over to him.

Of course it also help if the cartel doesn’t just have connections within and to its members, but also on the outside. And there’s nothing more useful than people who are simply… corrupt.

The officer drops a small key in his lap as he walks past him and to the front to help the driver with whatever problem he’s having. “Pop up the hood, I’ll have a look at it.”

“What, you’re a mechanic now?”, the driver huffs but does as he’s told nonetheless.

“Let’s just say I fix problems”, he shrugs and gets off the bus, leaving the driver and a second officer in the front with seven prisoners in the back.

A little bit of fidgeting later, Kubra has opened his cuffs and rubs his sore wrists, before handing the key to the man closest to him. He stares at him in shock and opens his mouth, but Kubra shushes him before he can say anything.

It takes a few minutes, but after a while every single prisoner in the bus has freed hands and feet. Slowly he rises from his seat and stalks up to the front. He does three large steps before the officer notices his approach.

“Hey, sit your ass back down!”, he shouts with a raised shotgun, but all he earns is a smirk. And a hit with another shotgun’s barrel against the back of his head.

“What the fuck?!”, the driver screams.

The corrupt officer hits him next and then lets the prisoners pass him and get out of the bus, before following them. “Two miles down that track there’s a hut with everything you need”, he whispers in his ear and earns himself a smirk.

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

“Always.”

A curt handshake is shared before he walks down the field road in the direction of the hut, whereat everyone else blindly flees into the woods or runs down the road. But he doesn’t care about them. They were never more to the plan than a simple distraction, just a means to an end.

Two hundred yards later he hears a shotgun go off twice, a couple of seconds later a third shot rings out.

_I love when plans work out_.

His name is Kubra Balik. And it’s time for his revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and Gentlemen, we are done. Quite the ending, huh? I know, some of you probably hoped for some happy fluff for our lunatic couple, but I'm just not the person for that kind of stuff. I love to read it, but I can't write it. Instead I decided to give you something I'm very good at.
> 
> CLIFFHANGERS! *ducks flying objects*
> 
> Yeah, I'm evil, I know. Especially since I'm not sure if I'll ever write a sequel. *ducks more flying objects* Just consider the epilogue as a Schrödinger's Epilog. As long as I don't write a sequel, the epilog both exists and doesn't.
> 
> Anyway...  
> Leaving the story as I did, left me very conflicted, especially after I read so many of the reviews on fanfiction.net where I uploaded this story years ago. Although the response has been mostly positive, there have been few who called the ending not worthy of the story, or just plain bad.
> 
> I agree with those reviewers in some way, because I too would've liked an ending where Alex and Piper live happily ever after, but that's just not my style. Not just because I'm not very good at writing sappy fluff, but because I don't ever think of that as a good ending.
> 
> Nothing I ever write ends happy. It just ends.
> 
> I get inspired a lot by my favorite authors; George R.R. Martin, John Scalzi, Sebastian Fitzek. I devoured The Hunger Games, Sharp Objects, Dark Places. I love TV-Shows like The 100, Orphan Black, OITNB. Those are rather different settings; fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, dramedy. But they have one thing in common: There are no happy endings.
> 
> It's never a bad ending either, but you won't see the protagonists riding off into the sunset in any of those, because that's just not the style of the authors. And in my opinion, that's just how a good story should end. After the characters overcome whatever fate decided to throw in their paths, there's no need to give them everything. Instead the ending should leave you thinking, hoping, expecting. It should end in a way that there might always be something more.
> 
> Apart from that it's also very hard to think of a good ending of a story that you love, that you've spent so much time with.
> 
> Believe me, I would've loved a happy ending for Alex and Piper, but for me it's just the other way around: a happy ending wouldn't have been worthy of the story.
> 
> Now you might argue that the ending wasn't bad because it's not a happy ending, but because it was so rushed. Suddenly it just stopped. Well, I could've stretched it for dozens of more chapters, but what good would that have done?
> 
> Law and Drugs was never going to be about them being together, it was about them getting together despite all the conflicts it created.
> 
> If I ever write the sequel you will get a story that will be about them being together despite everything. But the focus will still not be on sappy fluff. Instead it will be, just like Law and Drugs, on the conflicts.
> 
> After all, that is just my style and how I like it. This is not a romance novel. It's not made to tell you a perfect love story. It's made to make your heart ache, to let you want more, to have you feel pain for them and their situation.
> 
> If I've accomplished that, then I'm truly happy.
> 
> And if you say that you don't like that, then I respect that, too. Not everyone can like a story that makes your heart bleed instead of beat. But let me also tell you that you'll never find what you're searching for in my stories. Nevertheless I'm thankful for your criticism!
> 
> For the last time in this story;  
> Sincerely, your roman soldier  
> Mindoir, out.


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